By Doug Pilsworth
While on a road trip with my daughter, we naturally, spoke about our faith journeys. She is at the stage where she is now very inquisitive about what she actually believes. She is testing the waters, as Jesus says to her, come to me, walk to me, on the water. All around her, her world is betraying what she hears from her church. She knows, in her heart, what she should be doing, but then some in the church say that she shouldn’t do it. They say that she shouldn’t have any doubts, but only believe. Gladly, she is just obstinate enough to follow her heart!
Good girl.
As we were talking about questioning her faith, she asked me to come up with a list of questions that I had and have, as I traverse my life of faith. My father always told me not to believe everything that I read, that I should test it out to see if it rings true. I have always done that. So, I am sitting down, now-a-days, and exploring the questions that keep coming up in my faith journey.
When I was younger, I saw a rather vicious advertising campaign that was waged between two denominations in the States. The article, I remember, came with a picture of a beautiful young woman’s face, but on her mouth were two band-aids forming an X. The caption read, “Some churches give you all the answers, but they don’t let you ask the questions.”
That hit hard with me then and since and I have always challenged myself with authors from different stances and denominations to discover within myself, what is true. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Our lives follow the ways of Jesus as Jesus reveals to us all, heaven’s truth. When I was doing Bible studies, people would wonder why they hired me because they always said, “You have no answers, only more questions.” God wants to be in relationship with us and the only way to understand or know someone else is to ask questions. Here is a question.
Incarnation. What does it mean for my faith journey? When we think about this, our minds automatically go to the birth of Jesus. We remember John’s words, “Jesus, the Word made flesh.” And that is true. But, after some reading, I have come to realize that Jesus was not the first incarnation. What? What does the word incarnation mean? Incarnation means that something of a deity has become real in this world. So, when we think about it, the whole of creation is an incarnation. God created with the Word. It became real to us. So, when we look outside, we are seeing God’s first incarnation. If you look at the title of this article, you will have noticed that I separated into two, the word. We are all God’s incarnation, we are all created in God’s image. We are of God’s Spirit. It is inside of us, as is, God’s Word.
The new covenant of God was to in-print us with the Word of Life! Each of us are of God, as Jesus was, of God. And as followers of God, in Christ, we need to follow in the ways of Jesus, who challenged the world with heaven’s ways. We have to challenge the injustices perpetrated by evil in this world. That’s why when we feel like doing something wrong, we get that funny feeling inside of us. God is talking to us in that moment. We are God’s children and as such are caretakers of all the incarnations of God. It’s something to think about, isn’t it? God’s incarnation is us. Read Scripture and let it resonate in your hearts and you will know the true. God bless you all.
Doug Pilsworth is a retired United Church minister.
