Recently, I wrote to a friend who's been processing through some challenging spiritual questions. As I was writing, trying to compose a thoughtful response, it occurred to me just how infrequently I take the opportunity to articulate aspects of my own spiritual story. Writing, I’ve learned, helps us excavate our own depths, allowing us to sift through complex ideas and reflect on confounding lived experiences—regardless of whether or not we choose to share what we uncover. As beloved writer Henri Nouwen states: "To write is to embark on a journey whose final destination we do not know." Grab your pencils friends. Here's to unknowing.
Dear M,
It was great seeing you yesterday even though the time together was entirely too brief! Be that as it may, I'm always encouraged when a friendship seems to pick up just where it left off as if no time has passed. It was lovely to discover that our friendship is one like that. I was saddened to hear you've been wrestling with your faith. I've been there too and I know it can be a dark and lonely place. I hope you continue to be surrounded with good, compassionate people who are open to sharing their wisdom, while letting you be in this foggy space without judgment. May those people continue to emerge for you. But if they don't it's really no matter because questions of faith are between you and God anyway.
Your longing for deeper, more meaningful answers to the question, "Why follow Jesus?" prompted me to think about that question more myself. If you'll allow me, I'd like to share some of that with you now: I want to believe in a God who gets low; a God who meets us where we are despite how messed up, whiney, and impossible we can sometimes be. I want to know a God who offers endless love, invitation, and encouragement even when we keep getting it wrong. I want to celebrate a God who declares, "It is finished!" A God who says, "It's done. Stop striving, stop worrying, stop struggling, you are good, you don't have to be perfect, I love you, just be." Above all else, I want to know this God who tells us every human life is beautiful and valuable. I want to know this God who proclaims all creation to be deeply sacred and connected. I want to know this God who assures us that beneath the pain of this life—with all it's heartbreak, cancer and acne—that there's a bigger story of restoration unfolding. And finally, I want to know this God who longs to know us back and enjoy this life with Him. This is a God who gives us sunsets on Easter—not to shame us back to church, but just because sunsets are one of the most perfect and beautiful things our eyes can see.
I don't share this to coax you back into a box you don't desire to belong. I share it because I believe this God used our conversations at a wedding banquet in Nashville to remind me why I believe what I believe and to strengthen that belief even more. He used you friend! It makes no sense. But that's a God I want to know and follow—a God who flips logic upside down to accomplish giant things in seemingly small ways. What a divine mystery.
Sending love.