Faith and Curiosity

Have you ever questioned your faith? Have you ever felt a little bit of doubt when it comes to fully trusting God? I know I have during my faith journey. At times I have found myself on my knees begging God to reveal Godself to me in certain situations. I have asked God WHY on various occasions in desperate need to try to understand the beautiful mystery that is God. It is in these moments that I know even though I have some questions, that the Holy Spirit is the very essence igniting in me curiosity. Curiosity to imagine God in creative new ways (reformed and always reforming), always a beacon of hope to those things we as broken beings will never comprehend. So, I set out to explore faith and curiosity with my high school youth! During my discernment of how to spark this type dialogue by giving these youth permission to question, permission to live in the questions, and in doing so seeking the kingdom of God, I noticed that Kately started pointing - she points at people (Ill teach her manners soon!), she points at dogs, she points when she gets excited , she points constantly. Perhaps in this 10 month olds curious mind she is wanting to know, to explore, to figure out what she is experiencing. Nevertheless, I don't think this action of pointing is much different than where I have been and will be again one day im sure along my faith journey. A time of seeking answers. That is when I decided to go back through some recent pictures of Kately as she has curiously discovered: what sand feels like, how to walk in shoes, how to open an easter egg, the technology of an iphone, the idea of facetime, how to splash in a fountain, the wonder of meeting a new person. You see, these moments of curiosity for Kately are metaphors to our journey of faith! In Sunday school, I flashed up pictures of kately in new experiences and ask the youth to take the image of what was on the screen and to apply it to their walk of faith! The connections were marvelous! I was in awe at how our youth could connect the act of walking in new shoes for the first time to aspects of their faith journey, or to how water from a fountain splashes you in the face and how that is like the times in our faith journey when we need a little water thrown in our face to wake up and experience how God is at work in our lives! I share with you the pictures and invite you to discern how the images of curiosity speak to you about your journey of faith: the great joy of reading scripture and the gospel story coming to life, the discovering of God's creation, the complexity of God's mystery, the renewal of God's grace, the beauty of baptism, the desire to know God deeper, the awe of Holy Spirit active in our lives! Thanks be to God for the privilege it is to participate in God's work of the church!