Right in the middle of the reef at our local beach is a metal stake that has been there for as long as anyone can remember. I believe it was a mooring point for cray boats many years ago – but its still there and I imagine it will continue to be there for decades to come. We have spoken in church of this stake as a metaphor for a sturdy faith – one that is anchored strong and that will stand the test of time.

I’ve been a Christian now for around 40 years so I am probably a bit like the stake – deeply deeply rooted and with a lot invested in the Christian worldview. I also get paid to be a ‘professional Christian’, even more invested… (or even more conflicted should I ever want to give it away)

So perhaps I’m ‘staying’ because I don’t know any different, I’m ‘rusted on’ to the church… Or perhaps I’m just not open to the possibility of being wrong and it is just isn’t economically viable for me to walk away. I have often wondered what it would be like to stop being a paid pastor – to be a member of the congregation… I think it’s too late to experience that now. But, paid or not, I am a ‘vocational’ Christian missionary and leader. I believe it’s my calling and as such a huge part of my identity, so the thought of walking away would (I imagine) produce massive confusion around who I actually am and even what I’m doing on this planet. I don’t think I could do it easily.

That said, my reasons for staying have nothing to do with economics, fear of offending my family or sheer inability to think differently.

There are 4 main ones:

A Decent Explanation is Needed For Our Existence

So Bart Campolo asserts that we are most fortunate because of all the random coincidences of molecular collisions that occur in the universe, ours spawned human life. We are the lucky ones who get to experience ‘life’ rather than simply being ‘matter’.

By contrast the Bible asserts God created. After that the details get hazy.

Whichever one you choose is a faith decision because neither is 100% conclusive in its evidence. I don’t intend to go into debates about forms of evidence in this post. That’s not the point.

But based on what I have learnt, understood and researched, I am willing to bet my life on a higher power being behind the existence of this universe. It makes better sense to me than random coincidence. It also gives meaning to life. When asked about the meaning of life, Bart Campolo boldly and simply stated ‘your life has no meaning’. It doesn’t mean it can’t be used for good, but it isn’t embued with any particular meaning.

Of course I can’t answer where God came from, but neither can secularists answer where matter came from. It’s a stalemate with regard to the question of origins.

So you do your own homework and make your own conclusions. There has to be some explanation for our very existence. Where will you place your faith?

The Jesus Factor – I believe the gospels are generally reliable historical records and as such record the life of Jesus in an accurate way. If he is who he claimed to be then that’s big – huge actually. If he died, rose again and then ascended then he is surely worth listening to. The ‘Jesus factor’ has always been a most critical element of faith for me and the part I would struggle to walk away from.

I get Bart Campolo’s struggle with not feeling like its an ‘intimate relationship’ because often for me it has been disciplined and cerebral rather than ‘heart-warming’. But then that’s how I function.

I began spending time with God each morning when I was 15 or 16 and its’ been a ‘thing’ on and off since then. I would say that in 40 years of meeting with God I have very rarely experienced what I would consider to be ‘intimacy’. Perhaps ‘intimacy’ is the wrong word to use for this relationship? Perhaps it has too many cultural attachments for it to serve us well.

If you ask me if I feel close to God I answer ‘yes’. I believe that I sense his spirit at work in my own heart and mind as we read about in Hebrews 8. I sometimes feel a desire to do things that are beyond my own natural inclinations and in those moments I suggest that I am listening to the voice of God.

So – yes – maybe you’ve noticed I have switched members of the Godhead in this post… I relate to God the Father, but I follow Jesus. I do try to ask the WWJD question in life as often as I can. Sometimes I even do it…

I put Jesus central because the sheer act of living in his way has the power to ‘right the world’. If his ‘kingdom came on earth as in heaven’, then it would look like a whole bunch of us saying ‘Jesus got this stuff right.’

In so many ways Jesus is the deal maker or breaker for me. Take him out of the equation and I’m not hanging around. Of course in the ‘Jesus bit’ the cross and resurrection are the biggies – the cross as a way of life and the resurrection to give hope to us that there is a better day to come.

I think the evidence for Jesus being who he claimed to be is very compelling, so again I can’t look away.

The Bible

The last 10 years of my life have seen me carve open large chunks of scripture and ask afresh ‘just what is going on here?’ or ‘How am I supposed to read this?’

From the creation stories, to prophets, miracles, Paul’s writings and some of the historical literature. I feel like I am intentionally stepping out of my assumed / inherited knowledge and asking again ‘how am I supposed to interpret this material’?

I’m not a ‘Bible says it, I believe it that settles it’ person. Actually maybe I am but not in the way that phrase intends. Neither am I in the ex-vangelical ‘the Bible means whatever it means to YOU’ camp.

I had someone tell me once that they held a ‘higher’ view of the Bible than I do. That’s an interesting phrase to use – and it generally translates to ‘I take the Bible more literally than you do.’ I have no problem with affirming that I don’t take it all literally. I don’t think we are supposed to. But I would refute the suggestion that I have a lower view. I view it highly enough to want to challenge my own assumptions and upbringing and to ask if maybe I have read it thru a 20th Century western, conservative (male) evangelical lens – and that has led me to certain conclusions. It was Scot McKnight in The Blue Parakeet who said ‘we are always interpreting the Bible.’ No one reads is flatly and perfectly so we need to simply be aware of our inbuilt biases and conditioning.

That said in affirming the existence of a supernatural realm I have no problem with the Bible recording supernatural events, miracles and the like. If we believe in the supernatural then anything is possible. Water to wine, feeding 5000, walking on water, raising the dead… when does it get hard? If something is possible then anything is possible.

I have read the debates around where the Bible fits in our lives – its ‘authority’ and what that means, it’s ‘reliability’ (or ‘inerrancy’ if you want to ramp it up a notch – I’m not an inerrantist) and it’s inspiration. I’ve considered to what degree its a human document and to what extent it is divine.

In the end its coherence, its preservation, its own claims about itself, its ability to stand up to external scrutiny and its sheer wisdom and insight into human life set it apart as a unique book and one to be regarded just a little more highly than ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ or the like.

I am a daily (meditative) Bible reader and I find that most days I read and take time to reflect results in insight for my life. The key is taking the time to allow the Spirit to speak thru the text and that requires a degree of stillness. As I have done that I have experienced an awareness of God and occasionally a more particular nudge to consider a new direction in life.

My Experience of God

I put this further down my list as I am a natural skeptic and a little wary of over-reading God’s activity in my life.

That said, I do have specific experiences I can point to that would seem to be very clearly God showing up in my life and either challenging me, giving me a hand or giving me guidance.

I feel like I’m at a point now where I discern a good idea and a God idea. I have lots of ideas – some of them are good and might even be helpful, but they aren’t borne of an encounter with God. By comparison ‘God ideas’ come at me with a shudder – a shiver down the spine – a sense of ‘really?… you want me to do what?…’ An internal moment of fear maybe – or concern that the idea could just be too wacky. Yet when I test it against scripture it is not bizarre – just different to the ideas people have who aren’t God botherers. They are the ones I have to speak up about – the ones that I sometimes share with Danelle thru tears, because I sense deeply its the Spirit calling me to act, rather than just me wanting to do something good for someone.

As I sit here trying to figure out what I could offer as an example I realise I could cite plenty, but perhaps my decision to give up alcohol was one of the most God led periods of my life. You can read the story here if you are interested. I have no doubt the Spirit showed up in my life that day and said ‘ENOUGH!’

But what I love is that my earliest experience of God was before I was a Christian. Just a scared 10 year old kid with no mates and God did something for me that I asked for – but really didn’t believe possible. I shared it as a slot on 98.5FM and you can listen to it here if you wish

Of course a skeptic can refute these as coincidences or delusions, but these are the tip of the iceberg. When I struggle to make sense of the Bible, or when I doubt my decision to choose a faith position I have to ask how I make sense of the vast number of times I have encountered the divine in my life.

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If all of this sounds way too neatly tied up and locked away, then the next post might be helpful for hearing some of the thoughts that lurk in the back of my mind that I rarely process out loud because they may cause other people without sufficient faith grounding to experience confusion.

So until then…