The world is full of all sorts of smart, creative, dedicated and very articulate people. We can be in awe of them and feel dumb and inadequate by comparison. Don’t do that! We all have “empty spaces” in terms of what we do not know. We are ignorant. There are things we aren’t trained to do. We are all full of unanswered questions that threaten to swamp us in mystery and sometimes irrationality. Basically, we are all ignorant and unprepared, and God has always sent the ignorant and unprepared to do holy work!
God has filled us with purpose and equipped us with everything we need to step forward into the fog. Jesus, the prophets like Isaiah, and characters in scripture like Nicodemus were all subsumed in their questions and wonderings, but went ahead anyway. “Send me,” said Isaiah. Nicodemus followed Jesus even though his questions about the nature of the man were never answered. Questions are important. The poet Rilke tells us to “live the questions,” in fact to “love the questions like locked rooms … and books now written in a very foreign tongue…and live along some distant day into the answer.” God needs you and loves you. The church needs you and loves you. Believe it.
– Pastor Carol
