SeeSaw Faith
April 2nd, 2008 Posted in Growth, Theology
You might first think that the title of this blog entry is a negative statement, that you’re braced for me writing something critical about a person’s faith being a seeesaw faith. Quite the opposite!
We human beings have a constant tendency to go to extremes. We rarely achieve perfect balance in anything. The only one who was perfectly balanced was Jesus. The rest of us are in a constant state of adjusting from one extreme to another, from one focus to another focus. It’s probably just as well that children learn to play on a seesaw because they’re going to be coping with a seesaw existence for as long as they live!
When it comes to our faith we need to recognize that we also go to extremes. This is why there’s so much misunderstanding, even among Christians. We have a hard time seeing the good or value in someone else’s ideas or experiences.
I have a goal to do serious reading in different “camps” of Christianity. For instance, right now in my briefcase I have two books I’m reading. One is The Sacred Way by Tony Jones, which focuses on the classic spiritual practices such as meditation, sacred reading, walking the labyrinth, spiritual direction, etc. The other is Beyond Opinion by Ravi Zacharias, a book that is an in-depth apologetic of the Christian faith with intellectual arguments for the existence of God, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ, etc. Very different books! I’m enjoying reading both! I’ve decided that, as I get older, I don’t want to get stuck in ruts of thinking. I want to stay young, on the seesaw of faith!
(The photo is of our granddaugher Ruth enjoying her seesaw!)
Dave
