You Will Practice What You Believe
I was in a church small group discussion recently where a topic was raised that provoked some polarised views and strong opinions. It was a robust and respectful discussion, and inspired me to write this post. Our beliefs, particularly our faith beliefs often come from our church environment and are passed down to us by pastors and church leaders, but are often not personally researched. We trust that our leaders have done the due diligence for us, we trust that they have done the research. More likely, they are telling us what they have been taught by their denominational leaders or seminaries.
“Why Ask Big Questions?” is the title of chapter one of my book “Big Questions”. The focus of the chapter is to look at how we respond to new ideas, and asks the readers to look at how they respond to ideas, comments, or questions that are outside their held beliefs.
Our beliefs will determine what we do and how we act or react to any given situation, which is why I’ve titled this blog post “You Will Practice What You Believe”
Exert from Chapter One.
It is possible to believe, but not in something that is true
It is possible to be sincere, but sincerely wrong
It is possible to have faith in God that is inconsistent with the person of JesusEqually
It is possible to know what is true
It is possible to have a solid foundation
It is possible to have a strong faith in God based on secure understanding of God’s character
There are typically three different reactions to new ideas or challenges to what we believe:
- We bury our head in the sand. We put up a mental barrier and disregard the idea.
- We throw the baby out with the bathwater. We accept the idea and discard what we previously believed regardless of its value.
- We face the crisis and take time to investigate our held beliefs and the new idea to see how they fit together. Wisdom acknowledges that we don’t know everything, and that the new idea may have validity that we haven’t considered.
The third response is preferable because it keeps our minds from being closed to ideas that we haven’t considered before. Having a process to guide us when we respond to the Big Questions about God, the Bible and life in general is very helpful. The following are my suggested steps:
I try to catch myself before I react, and on the occasions I do stop long enough to think about my response, I always find that I learn something new. I hope you have the same experience.
Blessings for the journey
Brian
Faith should be lived out in practice
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