The Question of God

I grew up in the church.  We lived like a block away from  our church (Covenant Methodist in Springfield).  We were there All. The. Time.  I went to kindergarten there.  My twin sister and I were acolytes there.  We sang in each consecutive choir.   We went to Sunday School and youth fellowship every week.  My mom  managed the kitchen, so we spent our spare time helping with dinners and wedding receptions.  I knew every nook and cranny of the place and was friends with the ministers. 

When I went to away college, I admit that I worshipped in a church only occasionally.  But still, most of my friends were Christians.  After college, I started going to First Presbyterian in Springfield with some high school friends.  I sang in the choirs.  I was a middle school youth leader.  I went to a boatload of Christian concerts and camped out at Creation.

Then, as many of you already know, while I was married, I stopped going to church.  I went to synagogue more often than to a Christian church.  Even still, I believed.

Today, however, I'm having issues. 

Technically, I can totally get behind the Creation and an historical Jesus.  Hypostatic unity.  The whole son-of-God-rising-from-the-dead piece.  And the creeds - I'm good with the Apostles' and Nicene ones.  Actually, all the really big, macro-level fundamentals work for me. 

No, today's issues are more direct.  More personal.  More insidious.  The kind of unoriginal doubts that cause stifled eye-rolling in both tenured pastors and seminary students.

Like 'God wants to be in a personal relationship with me'.  I should include God in my daily life; pray to Him, read the Bible, and meditate. Is this really a relationship?  I suppose I've always defined a relationship as a two-way deal.  My relationship with God seems more like one of unrequited love:  one-way.  If this were a human relationship, all the advice columnists would be telling me how to break free from this unhealthy association.

Like the illusion of answered prayers.  Are these coincidences?  I don't know that I can point to any evidence that God has answered a prayer that was unambiguous in nature.  And, if, as Kierkegaard said, “Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays," does that really mean that prayer is merely a way for us to talk ourselves out of (or into) accepting something?  I just don't know.

Like God is love.  Love as in deep affection?  Or love as in any amorphous, invisible, theoretical concept?  I don't even know what to say about this one.

I know this isn't how I should be thinking, especially as an elder.  It's just a hard, confusing, Genesis 1 God time for me right now.