Although I have not met Helen Mildenhall personally, I am impressed by her thoughts and questions in our Wednesday Journal exchanges that have come about quite spontaneously. Her response to my response to her initial article on why she no longer attends church expressed genuine interest in getting answers to what I would call big questions of faith. And her sincerity showed in every word, worthy of appreciation not only of what she said but how she said it. Further comment is in order. Eavesdropping is invited.
She asks, in response to my comment that God is no enemy of an honestly inquiring mind: "How can I be sure that my inquiry is honest?" The question is right on.
My answer-at least for starters: Seek God for his own sake, on his terms. Meaning what? As one devoted to Jesus as Lord, I cite his call to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves. My conviction is that every person who makes that word the heart of honest inquiry before God will not be disappointed. I can say from experience that pursuing God in response to his love transforms the one seeking, shapes the mind in whole new directions, and brings seekers together as partners in serving the neighbor. That takes time and much grace in an honest inquiry that is part of what Paul the Apostle once called the good fight of faith.
One thought more: Religion always goes wrong when seeking God on self-serving terms, i.e. claiming the Almighty for our cause over theirs, wrapping him in this flag or in that ideology, prescribing the outcome before the inquiry ever gets started. None of that appears in Helen's quest. My hope is that she, and all of us with her, won't quit too soon on life's most important inquiry. Nor go it alone.
She also asks why so much of the focus on divine grace calls it "undeserved." Again, she's right on when saying that people who love her don't tell her she doesn't deserve it; they don't even regard that as an issue. The trouble is, though, our loving each other is too confined to those who are already lovable. When it comes to loving people difficult, even impossible to love, the grace of God is needed to reach out to the unlovable. I find a cross at the heart of that love, revealing a grace that is costly beyond measure and hardly deserved. In short, sin turns us all inward upon ourselves, hemming in what is intended to flow out freely with transforming power. The marvel is, our God gives his grace anyway!
Finally, Ms. Mildenhall wonders if people of Christian conviction are getting better at avoiding the pretense that we have God all figured out. I can't speak for everybody, but I do know many of the faithful near and far who show a winsome humility born of reverence for the majesty of God's greatness. I've learned something about that humility from experience. Among the first hospital calls I made as a newly ordained pastor in town brought me to the bedside of a very sick person. I launched into an overlong rehearsal of the mighty works of God when she stopped me in mid-flight with: "Young man, get down on your knees and in one sentence pray to God that I can get through this day-and then leave!" I did. He did. And she did. It was an early lesson in humility I've not forgotten.
