Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: QUESTION (S) (05/30/19)
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TITLE: Where Am I And Where Am I Going? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mary Hood
06/05/19 -
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To answer your question, tell me first what is your quest?
Frustrated, an armful of things dropped from her hands, as a little girl rushes toward the ocean. She was on a quest. It was to feel the sand squishing between her toes and to bathe in the ripples of the waves.
Maybe seeing the boats afar off told her more was possible than the water she stood in near the shore. Hope was in all that lay before her, near and far, and she couldn’t get there fast enough.
“Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward.” Jesus answered, “Why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.” Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me three times. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me; In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (Jn 13:36 – 14:7 ESV)
In each of us lives a Peter, and a Thomas. Each one of us will ask questions, but what is our quest? Where and how do we want to finish? Do we have a vision we are walking in and toward?
Jesus didn't leave them without answers. It was not until Peter felt the sting and conviction of denying Him and then experiencing His forgiveness, and Thomas, later, putting his hands through his side after His resurrection, that either could really understand His words and call Him Lord.
So many questions are based upon the longings of my heart. I see where I am and what is far beyond me. In my rush to experience all of it at once, I find I cannot hold any of it. It sifts through my fingers like the sand and rushes from beneath my feet like the receding tide.
“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.” (HEB 11:1 NASB)
Assurance and conviction in that which is hoped for and unseen equals faith. It is the antithesis of empiricism, which is sense and feeling. Faith is not based on wishful desires and my imagination’s wanderlust, nor is it completely rational, subject to logic and science. Faith can produce feelings, yet whether or not empiricism produces faith, I am hesitant to say, since feelings come and go.
“And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Rom 8:27 ESV)
A little girl on the beach has a quest. She will have to build a lot of sand castles and watch them get washed away before she knows the answers to her questions. She must learn the answers are older than the sand. She won't be convinced of the way until she is standing on the same side of the cross as Jesus. Jesus couldn’t have gone to prepare us a place until he went the way of the cross.
Jesus doesn’t leave us alone. He has endowed each Christian with the Holy Spirit . We can help one another when everything falls from our hands. No matter how old, no one should be left to carry their load alone.
Questions are derived from our quest.
Jesus has already answered. What does it take to understand His words, but faith in the one who confirms His answers with His life. When I confirm my quest, then maybe my questions will change. How reassuring to know He intercedes for each one of His children and will bring each of us safely home.
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Your opening question/ response did not seem to fit with a frustrated child. To me, it would have been better to start out with the imagery of trying to get to the water, but her family made her help carry the towels and beach toys, which she kept dropping in her eagerness to reach to water. You are on the right track- just keep at it!
Blessings