Through the gates of the garden

I haven’t been feeling creative lately.

Which really means I haven’t been feeling myself lately.

Which translates best to “melancholy.”

And there is no worse feeling for a passion filled 7 on the Enneagram.

I sit in my room most hours of the day as I wait for my season of employment to begin in a few short days. I have little energy for social gatherings, something I once found thrilling, and I can’t seem to steady my mind and instead find it wandering outside the parameters of the rational.

I feel as if I’m digressing.

But the wiser part of me knows that’s not true.

Something that’s been happening, as of recent, is God is taking my theology and flipping it upside down. Painfully.

I’ve been left with a lot of questions.

I’ve been simultaneously reading two incredible books “The Shack” by WM. Paul Young, and “And It Was Good” by Madeleine L’Engle.

Both of them have been shaking my faith a bit. Not the foundation of my faith, because that is and always will remain in Christ, but rather each of the bricks I’ve stacked on top of the unshakeable foundation as well as the tiny pebbles to fill all the cracks in between.

For a while, my melancholy state deemed these questions bad and wrong. The bricks and pebbles of my faith whispered, “questions are dangerous.”

But in the last few days, I’ve come to realize that

God never said that.

I recently had lunch with a friend at one of my favorite little farm-to-table restaurants downtown and low and behold one of my favorite worship artists, Audrey Assad, walked through the doors.

Me: *freaking out*

Audrey: *completely oblivious to my existence*

Me: “Uhm.. Audrey,” spoken with hardly an ounce of confidence

Band members: *beaming smiles with thumbs up encouraging me to continue with more failed attempts to grab her attention* (probably for their own entertainment)

Me: “Uhm, Audrey Assad???”

Audrey: Oh, hi!

It was an amusing exchange, I’m sure.

All that to say, I was extended a personal invite from the talent herself, so I went.

In her show she opened up about her continued season of asking questions and challenging her theology. She profoundly discussed her meditations on Psalm 23 and all that God had taught her through the wrestling.

While listening to her eloquence within the lyrics and melodies of her songs, God showed me something.

Doubt, confusion and questions- it’s all part of faith. But it’s in the wrestling where our faith is strengthened and allows growth.

It’s in the wrestling where God is pleased.

When we stick with it and wrestle through with determination and say “I won’t let go until you bless me,” (Genesis 32:26) then comes the blessing.

This truth is completely eroding the bricks and pebbles of my theology.

A literal “mind-blown” if you will.

I grew up with the belief that science was a danger to my faith. *Cue eye-roll* They almost never coincided, in my mind. But as I grow up, I’m learning that faith is so much like science.

When one question is answered, a hundred more are brought to the surface. The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing.

Humility.

And awe.

It’s like God is taking me out of the bare, white-walled, fluorescent-lit classroom that I’ve been stuck in my whole life and walks me through a library full of beautiful books floor to ceiling. Before saying, “pick one” He understands my overwhelmed state so He lets me sit in awe for a few moments before bringing me the perfect book in perfect timing.

Then He takes me through the gates of the Garden out back full of flowers and greenery, mostly sunflowers because He knows they're my favorite. A Garden full of the most breathtaking color contrasts with rays of sunshine peeking through the empty spaces. He walks me through the beauty, opens the book and invites me to ask any question I’d like, no matter how dangerous. Because in Love, there is no fear.

God wants persistence. He doesn’t want an idle human who is indifferent to awe and wonder. He wants followers who are all in, persistent in asking questions and those who will be so bold to wrestle with determination until blessing is achieved.

On the other side of doubt and confusion is awe, wonder, freedom, enlightenment and

Blessing.

“I won’t let you go,” Jacob replied, “unless you bless me.”

Then the man asked him, “What’s your name?”

“Jacob,” he responded

“Your name won’t be Jacob anymore,” the man replied, “but Israel, because you exerted yourself against both God and men, and you’ve emerged victorious.”

Please,” Jacob inquired, “Tell me your name.”

But he asked, “Why are you asking about my name?”

And he blessed Jacob there.

Jacob would later call that place Peniel, because “I saw God face to face, but my life was spared.”

Genesis 32: 26-30