Thursday, June 17, 2010

Are We Missing the Point?

I was thinking about it this morning: how much of a Christian's life is focused on the why and how rather than on the who, what, where, and when.  Here's what I mean:

It seems like Christians are spending a predominant amount of time fighting about the why's and the how's of the faith, and many of those questions will never truly be answered because of the fact that God has not revealed the information needed for those questions.  Example: If God is sovereign then why did he let my friend die? How can a loving God allow bad things to happen? Some may say that they have the answers to these and the millions more that go with those questions.  What Scripture teaches reveals God's expressed will.  If it's not in there, maybe God isn't wanting us to spend so much time on the topic.  It just seems like questions in the realm of why and how are in the realm of the philosophical.  Again, please don't get me wrong, I'm all about thinking through stuff like this, but not at the expense of the mission that we have been called to.

Here's what comes with the other ones:

WHO: Who am I doing this for (and of course the why am I doing this is always good to answer - so some why questions are great)? Who am I supposed to reach? Who am I supposed to minister to?

WHAT: What do you want me to do, Jesus?

WHERE: Where do you want me to go, Jesus?

WHEN: When do you want me to..., Jesus?

So I'm not saying that we never talk or think about the how or why of stuff.  But maybe I'm talking more about changing the priority: let's focus on the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, and WHEN questions, with the answer to why am I doing this at the forefront, and leave the other why's and how's to the left-over time when we're taking a break from the mission.  Just a thought.  Just thinking out loud.

3 comments:

  1. Hey good stuff Brian. The question arises, though: How do you have time to write this stuff? You're amazing.

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  2. Notice that my thoughts aren't really that long so they don't take much time. :)

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  3. Great post. The questions you pose, will force is to be service related and less self-focused, something that I believe is a current malaise of the church in America. The wrong questions are those that are really centered on me and very self focused and at time narcissistic.

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