Amazed

I once heard of a young boy who was told that Jesus once said that you could say to a mountain, “Move from here to there!” and it would move. With faith, this little boy told a mountain to move. Years later, Mount St. Helens erupted! “Did I cause that?!” he wondered in his childlike faith.

When I hear about having a faith that can move mountains, I immediately want it and yet, at the same time, am aware that what I do have is mountains of unbelief and doubt within me. My doubt is not solely about moving mountains. My doubt is also not confined to some of what I would call the big questions of the Christian faith: Does God exist? Did Jesus really did die for my sins and rise three days later? These are important questions, but my doubts tend to run much more along the lines of: “Is God really in my midst and does He even like me? Can God really redeem me and make me new, even in those broken areas that don’t seem to ever be healed? Are God’s promises really for me? Can God really use me? Is God really using me… Or is this all in vain?”

A couple months ago someone pointed out one word spoken by Jesus about faith that I have not been able to shake. They have captivated my attention and given me great encouragement in the area of faith.

One place this word is seen is in Luke 7, where a Centurion asked Jesus to give the word to heal his servant. Here is Jesus’ response: “When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel." Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.”

The second place this word is seen is in Mark 6, when Jesus visits his hometown people take offense at him there. In response, Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor." He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith.”

Amazed. I am amazed that Jesus, the Son of God, can be amazed. But there it is, Jesus was amazed by two things: faith and the lack of faith.

I am convinced that Jesus, at times, is amazed by my faith and that He is also sometimes amazed by my lack of faith. I flip back and forth between the two. I am rarely 100% full of faith, nor 100% lacking faith. I’m usually somewhere in between the two.

What has resonated deep in my soul and has become the prayer on my lips and in my mind, is one I have copied, verbatim, from another character in the Bible. This time it’s from a man who is nameless, known only as, “the boy’s father.” His son needed help, so he came to Jesus. The father said to Jesus, “But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us." “If you can'?" said Jesus. "Everything is possible for him who believes." Immediately the boy's father exclaimed, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!"

In the midst of the pendulum of faith and doubt that I swing upon, my earnest prayer has become, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" In this, I can be honest about my lack of faith and doubt, and at the same time ask for help in becoming one who might amaze Jesus with the presence of faith.

Posted by Emily Vancil

Past, Present, Future Faith

My own experience of faith and doubt is not one that I find to be that uncommon. As I look back over the years of my life it could not be more obvious that God has constantly been at work. I am thankful for the way that He has used my experiences and even my struggles in the Fiji fraternity during my college days to help me better understand how to relate to and minister to the guys in the house now. I never would have made it through 2 tough years working college Young Life down in Alabama if I wouldn’t have learned how to persevere through tough times while playing football here at the UW. The people God has used in my life have been obvious as I can pinpoint conversations and invitations given to me that guided me to the place I am in now. I have complete faith as I look into my past that God has guided my steps, even the times I have doubted what was going on.

As I look down the road in the future I am confident in the hope that I have in Christ Jesus. I do have faith in where he is leading me and that he is in control in my life and that when I look back in 15 years I will be even more confident that he has been at work than I am right now.

But where I get stuck often, is how often I question if God is at work in my life right now. And when I can’t see it or feel it, it is hard to know if it is real. Now this mostly comes at times where I don’t want God to actually be God, I want him to respond to my personal desires, but I still I get wrapped up in wondering what it looks like to experience God’s love in the present. “If he loved me, would this have happened?” I often ask thinking I know best for myself. And if I have faith in the past, and hope in the future, why don’t I always know how to experience that love in the present? What does that love look like? How do I know that it is here and active and present when I don’t feel it?

As God spoke into the silence over 2000 years to awaken the world that he is ever present on this earth, what came out of it was a tangible expression of his love. First in the Christmas story, soon followed by the Easter story. And the way that I experience that love in the present, is by the faith I have that when Jesus paid the price on the cross so many years ago, he did so out of a love for me that I can’t even fathom. And I absolutely believe that if Jesus Christ would have died just for me, and if I was the only one saved that day, that he would do it all again, just for me.

It doesn’t answer every question I have, but it does help to understand what love really is.

Posted by Mike McEvoy

The Tension

I often hear people talk about how we need to hold things in tension when it comes to faith. I don't think I have ever understood that better than on July 4, 2008. That day, I was in Corinth, Greece. It was not any of Paul's words to the Corinthians that moved me to deeper understanding of Truth, but a jump at the Corinth Canal. I was not expecting to bungee jump that day, but something inside me told me it was an experience I just couldn't pass up. Something else inside me, though, kept reminding me that something could definitely go wrong when you're jumping off of a bridge 150 feet above the water. What I was holding in tension was my faith in the rope and the people who understood the rope versus my doubts that everything would go well and I would return home unharmed. How did I test that? I jumped.

This is not an analogy where the rope is a metaphor for God. God is much more reliable than a bungee cord. But, because I was afraid that the jump could lead to death or injury, I was doubtful and I was forced to hold doubt and faith in tension. I can't, however, stand on the edge forever, endlessly weighing which side of my brain I trusted more.

When I experience deep pain or witness extreme injustice, I certainly find myself doubting a faithful God. There was a time when I would recognize that doubt and determine that I must not have enough faith. Now, though, I understand that true faith does not come without doubt. If I think I have faith without doubt, then I don't have faith at all - I have certainty. But we are called to faith, and ultimately, that faith must lead us to "jump." Trust me, it would have been a lot easier to take the plunge in Corinth from a place of certainty, but it was weighing all the doubts in my mind that made it a leap of faith.

Posted by Becky Riggers

Faith and Law: Reasonable Doubt

A lawyer friend of mine recently shared with me the instructions a jury is given prior to a trial:

A reasonable doubt is a doubt that exists and may arise from the evidence or lack of evidence. It is such a doubt as would exist in the mind of a reasonable person after fully, fairly, and carefully considering all of the evidence or lack of evidence. If, from such consideration, you have an abiding belief in the truth of the charge, you are satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt.

How does being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt translate to faith? This same friend, who is a prosecuting attorney, talked about reasonable doubt being like a puzzle. She gave the example of a puzzle with a lot of pieces and some of those pieces are missing. She invited me to think of a puzzle that is a picture of a barn. If, without looking at the picture on the box, you can tell it’s a barn, even if there a pieces missing, you probably have enough evidence to make a decision. She pushed back on her own analogy by acknowledging that pieces missing here and there are a lot different than if an entire section of the puzzle is missing, wherein the whole picture is compromised and it is difficult to determine the bigger picture. Bottom line: in the legal realm as it is with faith, certainty is not always attainable, nor is it the ultimate goal. Rather, seeing past circumstantial evidence and seeing the big picture (abiding belief in the truth) is the goal.

When we consider God’s covenant and steady relationship with Israel do we count it as evidence of God’s love? When we think of the grand positives of the Mosaic law do we count it as evidence of God’s love? When we consider the life, death and resurrection of Jesus do we count it as evidence of God’s love? While at times in our faith there are pieces missing and pieces that don’t seem to fit, can we see the big picture of a loving God that seeks unfiltered relationship with God’s creation?

It brings to mind Paul’s words in one of the most beloved chapters of the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13: “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

There are enough pieces to sustain my faith that God’s love for me is real. While I long to see and know the fullness of the picture of grace, compassion and love of God found in Jesus, I can see enough of the picture to give me great hope.

Expectation = Doubt

When it comes to questions about faith and doubt, the one that always arises for me is “why?” Not, “Why does God work in the way that God does,” but “Why do we have such a tendency to doubt that God is at work, and will be at work to carry through.?”

Recently, I was reading Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, and he partially blames this tendency to doubt God’s promises on our expectations. And not just normal human expectations, but the expectations that we have in America because of the fact that we were born and raised in America. In reference to God’s promises to answer our prayers, he writes:

We live in a society that is reasonably organized. Put a letter in the box, and it usually ends up where you want it to go. Order an item on the Internet, and it usually comes to you in the right size, color, and model. Ask someone to provide you a service, and it is reasonable to expect that it will work out that way. In other words, we are used to results in response to our arrangements. That is why prayer can be discouraging for some of us. How can we predict the result? We are tempted to abandon prayer as a viable exercise and to try getting the results ourselves.

This observation resonated with me when it comes to the doubts that I have about the promises of God. My expectations are based solely on what I have come to expect in this human world, and I tend to place God in that box. When I don’t see the results I desire, I doubt that God will follow through, or has already followed through as the case can sometimes be.

This reminds me of experiences in other countries, where the values and expectations of the culture are completely different from my own. When standing in a queue isn’t the standard mode of operation, but rather people sort of mob toward whatever it is they are waiting for, I have stood there flabbergasted (and irritated) that this is the way things work. Of course, my culture knows the “right way” to make things work!

Isn’t that how we approach our faith in God and God’s promises? One wonders if the limitations we place on God are causing our own faith to remain stagnant and narrow. What would happen if we could remove our human tendencies to expect God to fit into the culture that we come from, and instead, allow God to blow our expectations out of the water?

Posted by Janie Stuart

Reflecting on Reflecting

In preparation for the fall speaking series at the INN, I’ve started reading a book from Daniel Taylor called The Myth of Certainty: The Reflective Christian and the Risk of Commitment. It’s caused me to reflect on reflecting.

It seems that we are all asking questions of identity. Who am I? It’s the question that college students ask and a question that I continue to ask as I anticipate creeping up on the time that is traditional for a mid-life crisis. Taylor says, “Reflectiveness is a character trait deeply rooted in what one essentially is. It helps define one’s fundamental experience of reality. The life of a reflective person is more likely to be interesting, less likely to be serene; more likely to be contemplative, less likely to be active; more likely to be marked by the pursuit of answers, less by finding them. The result is a high potential for creativity, curiosity, and discovery but also for paralyzing ambivalence, alienation, and melancholy.”

Psalm 119 encourages us to mediate on the Lord’s Precepts and the Lord’s exhortation to consider the lilies of the field (Mt. 6:28). This encouragement is an invitation into the tension of the reality we live in. Reflection is a risk/reward endeavor. It leads us into the mystery of questions that can and never will be answered. When we get consumed with getting the right answer, we miss the pursuit of the question. For good reason: the pursuit of answers is difficult because it is filled with tension.

But the Christian faith invites us to consider the tension of seeing opposites: the first being last (Mt. 19:30), the physical and spiritual (Gen. 1), dying to live (Luke 14:27). Part of the journey as people seeking union with Jesus is thoughtfully pursuing these answers, not just getting the answer in a well-packaged sermon. We meditate, reflect, struggle, doubt, question, discuss, wonder and celebrate this pursuit individually and in community. We struggle because we are seeking to reimagine who we are as Children of God and seeking to discover more of the mystery of God. On this journey, we get the sense that God is bigger and more loving than we thought.

So this fall I invite the community around University Ministries to reflect. I challenge you to engage the tension present in your faith and think for yourself as we seek a bigger expereince with the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ.

What about Kissing during dating? Is it okay to passionately kiss someone you’re dating?

If we were living during the time of the early church, we would see a lot more kissing go on. It was part of the standard greeting between people that were in community. I think it is appropriate to express physical affection while you are dating. The physical aspect of attraction is one part of attraction alongside emotion, spiritual and intellectual. I certinaly don’t hear any kissing embargo in the Bible.

That said, kissing or any of the physical aspects of relatoinship need to line up with the emotional, intellectual and spritual aspects as well. Not that these four components will always be totally equal, but they need to be close. For example, if you are making out with someone but cannot have any sort of intelligent conversation where one person is actually listening and interested in the other, then back off the physical.

One popular conservative critique of kissing is that it works much like a gateway drug. That is to say, it’s called first base for a reason and it’s never the goal to stay at first base. However, I tend to think that we are capable of being able to exercise self disipline in this manner, but we do so understanding that self-discipline is difficult. We are animals, yes, but we’re people capable of moving beyond mere instinct.

Ultimately, I think I would encourage young couples to talk more about what they expect physically including naming the boundaries that each wants to honor in a dating relationship. If you talk about your physicaI relationship with other people, but not with the person you’re dating, perhaps an indication that things are off emotionally and/or otherwise. I think talking more about expectations in the phyiscal aspect of relationship allows for a freedom that’s appropriate proactively, instead of getting carried away in any given moment on the couch.

So, go ahead and kiss, show affection to this person that you are getting know on several different levels, but be okay with the single in the courting stage of a relationship, instead of swinging for the fences. And be sure that physical aspect of your relationship is one that you are dialoguing about and that is going at an equal pace with the rest of your relationship.

How can I stop looking at porn? Sex is tough but porn can be harder to get away from. Any advice?

Response to texted question on dating from May 12.

Tough one. If I had a nice tidy answer to this one, I’d be a millionaire.

In terms of the questions that were texted to us in our series at the INN, it seems that no one was seeking to justify porn as a good thing or even neutral. There seems to be a common understanding of the twistedness of porn (btw…that’s what the Greek word means, “twisted”), at least by the folks that attend the INN. Given that, let me see if I might offer some life-giving advice.

First, to the degree that it is possible, I encourage you to take captive the thought by the power that is found simply in the name of Jesus. Per a book by Neil Anderson, The Bondage Breaker, I would encourage you to call upon the power of the resurrection when you discover the overwhelming desire toward porn, masturbation and premarital sex by simply saying a prayer that may sound like, “In the name of Jesus, I take captive that thought.” If we desire to overcome a draw toward porn and the like, I believe we must believe that God is with us and wants to be with us and has the power to help us in that struggle.

Second, and similar, remembering that you are forgiven and that this sin (or any other) does not have to define you. The grace of God does. God gets the final and decisive word on our identity and that is a word of grace, mercy and love. Too often, I see people get bogged down in the shame of the struggle of pornography and it paralyzes them in their ability to interact in other relationships, in ministry, in faith and simply life in general. Don’t let the enemy have this victory. We don’t surrender to our sickness, we celebrate our healer.

Now, I know that those first two may sound kind of trite, but, because this is such a complex issue, it is a place to start that opens us to the reality of God’s grace in our lives.

Third, bring it into the light. Confess to a community. The more we can keep this from being our dirty little secret, the better the opportunity to experience Christ’s power in the struggle. The longer this stays in the dark, the more potential there is for one to be convinced that this is not a problem. I’m very confident in saying that when you confess with a person or group that you trust, that loves you, you will most likely hear, “you are not alone.” Allow your community to support you. This brings honesty to the equation: to yourself and to your community. Most likely, your community will be blessed (and perhaps relieved) by that honesty.

Fourth, create a plan. Often going “cold turkey” from porn doesn’t work. One strategy is that you seek to corral it and put boundaries around it. I might sound like a bit of a heretic here, but I’m confident of what I’m pointing to. Here is what I’m getting at: If you are looking at porn every day and seeking to stop, why don’t you pick one day in the next week that you don’t look at porn. Then maybe the next week do two days. You get the direction I’m headed. The idea is to eliminate it completely from your life. Here’s the catch: I think this plan only works if you are sharing this with community. People need to support you and hold you accountable in it. Make a pact with your small group. Agree to call each other when you are tempted. Commit to praying for each other as you engage the struggle.

Finally, take extreme measures. Get a filter on your computer (see XXXchurch.com for resources) or eliminate it all together. Jesus exaggerates this point in the Sermon on the Mount when he asks listeners to consider their right hand. “And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away.” (Mt. 5:30) Whatever it is that is leading us away from Christ, we should seek to purge and remove. This is at the heart of Christian spirituality, dying to ourselves and seeking union with the living, loving, gracious God that is eager to be with us in Jesus Christ.

How do you renew purity and become right with God after giving your virginity away?

Great question. Because we live in such a sexually-charged culture, there is this perception that one is permanently marked as “impure” after having sex for the first time. While the dynamics may be different it seems that as a culture we have not come much further than Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Victorian Classic, The Scarlet Letter. Particularly within the church, we are even further behind in how we talk about sex and purity. I hope this can change.

Becoming right with God is an endless and exhausting endeavor. In fact, I’ve never met anyone that can get right with God whether they have had sex or not. It’s a bit bewildering why our churches don’t make a bigger deal about lying, cheating, stealing or stewarding our money, but churchgoers often hop on this bandwagon of ultra-condemnation io someone who has sex before they are married. The reality is that sin makes it impossible to be right with God, regardless of what the sin is. On our own we cannot become pure or get right with God. That’s the bad news. The Good News is that the story of the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ is a story about a God that welcomes his children back over and over again. We discover a God that gets down on his knees and washes the feet of the ones he loves. We do not make ourselves right with God; it is Jesus, his life, sacrifice and glorious resurrection that make us right with God. Our job is to trust and believe that such love is genuinely for us. Even those of us that have made mistakes sexually.

God is dying (and in fact has died!) to free you of the guilt and shame that so often comes along with such sin. The church is in need of repenting for perpetuating such guilt and shame. When we believe that we are loved, forgiven and purified by a God who seeks relationship with us, we begin to change. Our decision to follow Christ might be a one-time deal, but the whole idea of transformation and purification is an ongoing process. Scripture tells us of a woman caught in adultery that Jesus does not condemn. He does however encourage her to start anew and sin no more. In the story you get the idea that Jesus’ great hope for this woman is that she would never find herself in that position again -- a position driven by guilt, judgment and condemnation.

In Christ we are a new creation, only by the work that Jesus has accomplished. Our job is to simply believe that it is a love for us that we are to share with others. That is what purifies us.

If I've had anal sex, am I still a virgin? How far can I go and still call myself a virgin?

Response to texted question on dating from May 12
What is virginity? How far can I go and still remain as one that can honestly say, “I’m a virgin.” This is a popular concern among students who are seeking to be faithful to their Christian beliefs.

The easy answer to this question is simply that a virgin in one who has never had sexual intercourse. But I would argue sex is sex: oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation, and the like. We’ve made this question incredibly difficult. Thus, I think the best way to respond to this question is to take a page from Jesus’ playbook and change the question.

I really do believe that in asking a question about virginity or any manifestation of the question, “how far is too far,” misses the point. In asking the question, we articulate a solid value, but are addressing it the wrong way. Embedded in this question is a value on purity or, dare I say, righteousness, to which followers of Jesus are undoubtedly called in Holy Scripture.
Instead of asking the question that is essentially, “How far can I go and still be righteous, pure, or in God’s will?” we need to reframe the question to be, “How, as a sheep gone astray, can I get close to the shepherd?”

In the pasture of our lives, we too often walk around near the fence trying to find a distance from the Good Shepherd, but still be in the green pastures. I get that we are curious about what is on the other side of the fence. I, likewise, wonder why it is that we are not more curious about the Good Shepherd that is standing there watching us and bidding us come. Why are we more curious about the other side of the boundary than we are with the God of the Universe? I think what the Shepherd has for us is far spectacular relative to the other side of the fence.

Pursuing union with God and the faith of Jesus is the point of living out the Christian faith. Frankly, we should be less concerned about discovering virginity boundaries, and be more resolved to pursue union with Christ. I’m convinced that when one commits to that pursuit, purity is sure to follow.

What would you say are qualifications for dating? Surely not all dating is good…

Response to texted question on dating from May 12
I would agree, not all dating is good. But I very much believe that dating, even dating that doesn’t end in marriage can be good.

More than anything else, I think the primary qualification for dating is probably simple fascination. What do you do when you meet someone that captures your attention and grabs your interest? Personally, I think there needs to be little more than that to go on a date with someone. A date does not necessarily mean dating, but it is the important first step in understanding that dating is primarily about discovery. It is a partial process in discovering the image of God in someone else and image of God in ourselves. I would encourage someone who is fascinated with another person to pursue them instead of merely fantasizing about them. Go ask them out and pursue them for the purposes of getting to know them. In the process you may get to know more about yourself. This is a lot less selfish than going home and making them the object of your lust while you fantasize.

This may sound like really good news to the “serial first dater.” While the approach to dating should be fun and exciting, IT CAN NOT BE RECKLESS. You should not be reckless with your own heart or the heart of someone else. There is a risk in dating and romance and it needs to be approached with an eye on the feelings of the other, not merely one’s own desires or lusts.
One of the ways that we can accomplish this attentiveness to others feelings is to stay present. Women can get ahead of themselves by thinking about the colors of the wedding on the first day. Men often wonder what she looks like naked. If we can stay in the moment of remembering that this is about getting to know somebody as they are right now, rather than what they might be (or what I want them to be) later, we have a much better shot at staying present.

Like the question stated, not all dating is good. If someone knows that a relationship is going nowhere, they should probably not initiate it any further than it needs to go. If you find out there is a deal breaker (i.e. you are a Christian and the other person is a non-Christian), don’t linger in romance any longer. Too often, people approach relationships with someone they come to adore thinking that they can change them. If you find yourself in a relationship thinking that someone needs to change in order for the relationship to continue, you should excuse yourself from that relationship.

While the Bible is silent on dating we can take some cues in our dating behavior by listening to the story of a relational God who has given us the example of considering others first and departing from our own selfish desires; that is, laying down our lives for others. While the primary way that we can know the love of God is through a relationship with Jesus Christ, there are many ways that relationship can play out. Prayer, meditation, the study of scripture, community, to name a few and to demonstrate that the relationship is complex and dating is initiating and exploring the first aspects of the complexities of relationship. Also, we have to push being unselfish, loving others before we love ourselves.

Ultimately, we cannot look for dating to be what completes us or gives us a sense of wholeness. The journey of the Christian faith is seeking unity with Christ. Let's seek to allow even our romantic impulses to guide us in seeking a deeper intimacy in relationship with Jesus. RC

Welcome!

Welcome to the Inn's blog. The Inn is the large-group service of University Ministries, a college ministry of University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. This space will be used to answer questions, clarify sermons, announce opportunities, and more. In the near future, we will be bringing you answers to some of the questions that weren't answered at the Q&A time done by Mike & Shari Gaffney as part of our relationship series. In the meantime, we thought we would start this off by sharing the mission statement of University Ministries:

To the Glory of God…

Our purpose is to "Go and make disciples of all nations," beginning with college-age individuals and young adults in the greater Seattle area. We aspire to:

• Introduce them to Jesus Christ and urge them to commit their lives to Him as Savior and Lord
• Help them develop an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ

We prepare God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up by:

• Teaching and equipping them to better understand and communicate their faith.
• Helping them experience Christian community and intimate, honest relationships with each other.
• Beginning the process of helping them discover and use their spiritual and leadership gifts.
• Providing opportunities and a vision for a life of mission in their communities and around the world.

As part of God’s call to us, we seek to understand the various needs of college-age individuals and young adults and to creatively minister to those needs. Our desire is that their faith established today will stand firm tomorrow.

Our Theme: "Pursuing Real Life in Jesus Christ”