I’m approaching my second rebirthday! Hooray!
I’ve gone through various periods: immediate joy and fulfillment, and release from guilt. About the same time, periods of incredible change as God conquered sin in my life. Later, struggles with sin and then seasons of repentance. And then rapid growth in knowledge and joy.
My latest season has been going for a few months now: spiritual adolescence (term stolen from ‘Boundaries Before Marriage’). Adolescence is a period of rebellion and discovery. While still going through many of the things above, I’ve found the last few months to be times of questioning and challenging what I’ve always been told. I want to know why I believe that, and whether or not it is true and justifiable.
Questions I have had answered in the past, like ‘Can we trust the Bible?’, have resurfaced as I feel the need for intellectually deeper answers. I’ve also had questions about doctrines, such as their Biblical bases and, often, the difficulty of accepting them.
I think its a good period. It would be intellectually dishonest of me to just accept everything I was told. Even more, as I search and find strong, valid, convincing, and satisfying answers, my faith is depened.
Mature Christians, what is the best way to approach this period? Does it end?
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Yes. Heaven.
But probably not this side of it. I think. Will you ever stop having questions? Depends on you, but if you’re a thinker (I’ll assume you are given the posts preceding this one
), I’d imagine you’ll always be learning, questionning, and seeking to understand the Scriptures more deeply. I mean, can you know God fully, will you fully understand all of Scripture and every point of Doctrine? I always find the more I learn, the less I know.
I guess also there’s a point where you need to accept that God’s ways are higher than ours, and so sometimes it might be that you have to trust Him, even if you may not understand why. Well, perhaps not the why, but the how. I’ll try to make more sense. We know why – for His glory. But sometimes it’s hard to see how x,y,z will achieve that end.
I don’t know, perhaps part of maturity is accepting that we can’t know everything, but without compromising our intellect. As in we must must must keep thinking critically about what we are taught and what we read etc., but having the humility when necessary to say “God, I don’t understand, but help me to trust you”.
I don’t even know if this answers your question, and I’m not sure I’d call myself mature.
Hmm, adolescence … now you’ve got me thinking …
That’s really helpful! Thanks!