Read the daily readings from the USCCB website here!
Let’s be real. Christianity doesn’t always make sense to us. We are saved by suffering? What’s that about? God chose to become man just to wind up being despised by the powerful and sent to be tortured and brutally murdered? Doesn’t sound like a real, omnipotent God to me.
Has anyone ever told you that it’s okay to wrestle with these questions? If not, let me do so now. IT IS OKAY TO QUESTION GOD. IT IS OKAY TO QUESTION WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES.
But don’t hear what I’m not saying… or rather don’t read what I’m not typing.
God’s ways are far above our ways. There are many so many mysteries that we as humans are simply unable to grasp. Jesus is fully man AND fully God? How can a God who loves us allow suffering?
Here’s the most important thing, though. We need to trust God. Because those answers exist, we just might not understand them right now. In the culture in which we live, it’s easy for us to believe whatever truth is convenient for our world view. That way we don’t have to go through the discomfort of disagreeing with each other. But Truth exists, and it’s a Person. There is right and there is wrong, but how do we learn that unless we ask? That’s the lesson we learn from Nicodemus.
“How can a man once grown old be born again?”
“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.”
Yeah that’s pretty vague, especially since Nicodemus would have no idea of the Holy Spirit that Jesus refers to. That doesn’t change that the answer exists. It might be confusing. We might not understand why it is the way it is, but Jesus invites us to trust Him to explain it to you. So follow Him and learn from Him.
What are the questions that you struggle with? Write them down! Reach out to a trusted friend and have a conversation about it. Do research. But at the end of the day, trust that God has revealed His truth and that our desiring it to be different doesn’t change reality. He loves you.
-Amanda Nobis, Director of Evangelization