What Are You Questioning?

 

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Seldom, but sometimes I sit down at my keyboard and ponder what to write. Usually, something is already itching at my fingertips and words come out without effort. Today, I pondered.

I consider myself a follower. Yes, I follow Jesus – and I love that I love my Leader!

But I’m a follower with leadership skills and abilities, so sometimes, when I’m following, I want to tell my leader(s) “better ways” to get the tasks done. Some call it being bossy.

Being a follower, one who can follow instructions – I crave instructions for the most complicated things in life. Don’t tell me how to better make a pan of lasagna, though I’m open to suggestions. But those complex things, like how does a person resolve anger issues or put their past to bed – those need step by step directions! Maybe implausible, because we’ll heal somewhat differently, even if there are basic principles that would help us all.

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Sometimes I get frustrated with self-help books and want to scream at the author, “Just tell me what to do!”

Life doesn’t always work that way.

Even here with my blog posts, some readers may want answers to life’s great questions. I can share with you the answers I’ve personally discovered, but they may not be YOUR answers. The only One with all the answers is the One I hope to point you to with every post I share.

“It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.”

-         Proverbs 25:2 KJV

And in case you didn’t know, you ARE a king.

Revelation 1:5-6 tell us that Jesus “loves us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”

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God wants you to have all the answers, and He uses us to help each other. But the most important thing He wants from you is your heart and He longs to give you His. He wants to talk WITH you, He wants to do life with you. He wants to give you the best life possible, He wants to heal all your hurts. He wants to set you free. He wants to live in you – and He wants you to live in Him. He wants you to put Him first because He put YOU first. Yep – there’s that intimacy thing again.

I can point you to Him all I want.

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But till you sit down with Him and have those conversations you’ve been avoiding, you’ll still ache. You’re not hiding. Not really.

Is it time yet? Are you TIRED ENOUGH YET of carrying the weight of your troubles?

God isn’t mad at you. Not at all. Run to Him. Be healed. Get alone with Him.

Psalm 139 describes the God’s perfect knowledge of everything about you. Read it here:  Psalm 139

Where She Intersects With Me

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Do you ever talk about yourself as if you were someone else? Or is it just me? I see little scribbles throughout my notebooks referring to myself as, “she” and “her”. Perhaps I’m not ready to own everything I say about myself.

‘It began to dawn on her just how powerful she really is……’

Her words, ah yes, it comes back to her words… and of course, the intentions and conviction behind them. Does she really mean what she says? Or better yet, do I really mean what I say? If so, those words are powerful!

I make up my own phrases; my very own terminology, when I talk to myself about myself. Occasionally, I apply these phrases to others.

One such phrase is “sensory perception overload”. I don’t think it’s a real thing, but perhaps I should Google it. Okay, I just Googled it, maybe I’m not making it up. Hmmm….or maybe someone else just stole my idea (again). From the bit I read, we’re not actually talking about the same thing, at least, not exactly.

For me, this sensory perception overload is simply a matter of the way my senses sometime perceive things and can cause me to temporarily short-circuit, or overload; rather a hand-in-hand idea with “too much of a good thing”. When I’m reading a book, for example, and it gets too exciting or too intense for me, I can get flustered and need to slow down or reread the paragraph a time or two. When listening to someone talk on a topic I find exceptionally fascinating, I can’t always put them on pause or replay what they’re saying, because sometimes it’s in real-time, in real life, as opposed to watching and listening on YouTube or some other internet site. When the information they’re feeding me tantalizes the senses I’m using to understand it, I can get a bit overwhelmed. Since I can’t stop them from adding more information so quickly, I sometimes block them out. That’s a lose-lose situation for me, because I then lose the points they were making in the first place.

Am I being too transparent? Or do you encounter this as well?

Going back to what I quoted from a notebook earlier, ‘It began to dawn on her just how powerful she really is……’ I can perceive the power; it’s just beyond my reach. It’s a little too exciting to grab onto – yet. But, I will. It’s not far beyond my reach, I can see it. I’m just in the process of wrapping my head around it. Perhaps that’s what keeps it at arm’s length….my need to understand it before I depend on it.

Must we always understand everything we use? No. I don’t understand how electricity works. I simply flip the light switch and the darkness is instantly banished from the room. I don’t understand how my body heals itself when I obtain an injury, but in a matter of days, I can behold a cut become a scar and most often, disappear entirely. I don’t understand how I can spend so much and still have a positive balance in my checkbook, but praise God – I haven’t been overdrawn in decades.

Where does understanding intersect with faith? Is it even necessary to draw that line?

Are even the faithless faithful? Are those who question the very concept of faith, actually walking in faith daily but refusing to see it?

Personally, I’m quite convinced I don’t need to understand God completely before I can, by faith, believe Him. And sometimes, He totally blows my perception circuits!

“Trust in the LORD with all of your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6 (NASB)

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1 (KJV)

What If I Don't?

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What if I begin to ask my questions backwards? I admit I’ve been struggling to lose weight here in the past few years. While pondering the conundrum, it occurred to me that I’m settling for answers to the wrong questions. Duh!

For lunch today, I presumed I’d have my leftovers from yesterday. I barely ate half of the calzone from my Sunday lunch at Old Chicago, where we watched the Cleveland Browns start a winning game! Knowing it’s not my best choice, I asked myself why I had to eat it. Well, I already paid for it, no sense in wasting it. (I’m one of those folks who’s been trapped in the “I ordered it – I eat it/I paid for it – I eat it” game of reasoning.)

But what if I ask the question differently? What if, instead of assuming I should, I ask, “What if I don’t?” I’m delving into areas I seldom consider for my own life. What if?

I need to go for a walk this morning. But, what if I don’t? If I don’t, I get to stay in my warm house and write, or piddle around with my other chores for the day. But I know my weight will remain the same. Normally, I settle for that. But, what if I do? If I do go for that walk, I stand a chance at bettering a good habit, and the numbers on the scale may become more kind to me!

Let’s go back to that carb-filled calzone. What if I do eat it? I laden myself with the burden of those carbs and I slide away from the table bloated and feeling lazy, perhaps adding to my weight concerns. But, what if I don’t? What if I just eat the meat inside? Or what if I throw it away!? Now that’s a profound thought! Hmmm, pondering… processing….. Whether I eat it or throw it away, the money is already spent. But, one’s mind might argue, if I don’t eat it, I’ll spend more money on a new lunch today. (Can you tell I might be trapped in a poverty mentality, even though our budget is a healthy one?)

The bottom line is - which choice will get me one step closer to where I want to be?

When the weather is too cold, I can rationalize not going out for a walk. But, yes, we have an elliptical….and yes, I can make excuses for not using it, but what if I don’t? What if instead of making excuses, I rationalize reasons I should do it?

Many of you may have already faced these choices and have come out on the winning side. I commend you, even though you’re resounding “duh!” rattles in my head. You’re smarter than I am, I get it. But for me, it’s finally getting interesting. What if I argue the other side of the coin in my mind?

What if…..?

“Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.” – Proverbs 4:26 (KJV)

More Questioning?

How did we get to where we are?

Do I really get to choose what to believe? Or do life’s circumstances dictate what and whom I trust? Does what I was taught is true hold fast all my life? Do events that occur around me or to me shape what I perceive as truth? Do I get to select the path I’ll take in life? What influences my choices?

Of all the minds in the world – you (questions) have to walk into mine.

For me personally, all of creation resounds with a chorus of, “Yes, Helen – there is a God!” I was taught that God is God and that He is good, all the time. But events and circumstances show up on the path I’ve chosen and beg me to question. I question why God does or allows the things that go on around me. I question how His “on time” sometimes appears to be “too late” or “too little”. I question why I question. It seems like it would be simpler to just believe what we’re told. But to some extent, we all question.

When I told my young son, “The iron is hot, don’t touch it,” something in him compelled him to find out for himself. Nope – mom didn’t lie, or was it that he needed to know for himself what hot was, or how it applied to something that was never in the oven? I don’t believe our questions are shallow at all, but actually have layers and layers of investigative efforts behind them. When I told that same son that Crisco is not frosting, again, he had to taste to believe. (By the way, again I was correct.)

Repetition teaches us. When we experience the same outcome over and over again, we begin to trust that it’s the outcome we will always get… until we experience something different. Then we begin to question the outcomes we had up to that point. And rightfully! We begin to investigate what made this outcome different. A chair that’s faithfully held us at the dinner table until now becomes suspect: did it let me down because it wasn’t built correctly twenty years ago or because over time it’s taken a beating and needs repair, or because I’ve gradually gained fifty pounds? (No, a chair did not really collapse beneath me.) Would it be logical to say that the chair never really did support me?

To question, or not to question – this is my question!

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. –Isaiah 1:18 (KJV emphasis mine.)