“Faith and Reason” by Pastor Nate

I’ve written before about the importance of faith, about how
sometimes we can get caught up in trying to “think our way” to God.   But, I
need to mention that there is another side to this, and that is the importance
of academics and intellect in our relationships with God.

God has created all of us in His image—in the beginning we
were created by God and declared “good”.
In this journey of faith we are called to us the gifts of our creation
to seek and honor God: with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our
mind.

Sometimes we can become too engrossed in the mind part of
pursuing God.  Try as we might, we cannot
think our way to God.  God is so far
beyond our grasp that it would be idolatrous to believe that our intellect would
be able to pin down God.  Indeed, our
relationship with God is largely dependent upon elements of faith.

However, so much good can come from the struggles of faith.
We are all blessed with the incredible ability to think and reason.  I strongly believe that challenges to our
faith are also gifts of God.  If
everything was easy then how would we ever grow?  We are constantly being molded to become more
mature followers of God and Christ.  Challenges
to faith, doubts within faith, all of these are merely further steps toward a
more mature, more whole relationship with God.

Please, do not abandon the questions that you have about God!  Embrace these challenges as signs of God
working in your life and remind yourself that God is always guiding you toward
maturity.  Our faith is a gift that
allows us to be closer to God when the challenges of intellect overwhelm.  But also, our mind and our intellectual
struggles are gifts that bring us into a stronger relationship with God.