February 20, 2015

As a pastor, I was taught never to wrestle with difficult truths in front of the congregation. Give them simple three-point, alliterated answers to life’s problems.

That may have been the right thing to do years ago. Perhaps we really did live in a simpler era when answers were easier, God made sense and the church always did things well.

But not any more.

Today, people don’t trust answers that come too easily. At least not when we’re dealing with the big questions of life.

That has led some people to give up on the idea that we can find truth at all.

Not me. More than ever, I’m committed to the reality that there is a God. He does exist. That Jesus is the only way to heaven. And that the bible really does mean what it says.

But.

The details are messier than we’d often like to admit. So here are a few of those messy details that I’ve come to be OK with in recent years. I’m even OK with acknowledging them to my church, from the pulpit.

Just don’t stop until you get to the end of the story. The road may not be as smooth as it once was, but the destination is more than worth the trip.