This beautiful simplicity

I've been struggling a lot recently with all the ins and outs of the Christian faith. Biblical and theological paradoxes, like how Jesus is fully man and fully God, how we are saved completely by grace not works yet should strive towards Christlike-ness, how we balance solid Biblical teaching and personal experience of God in our Christian lives…questions which often have no answer that we can possibly expect to know or understand. At least not yet.

We talked at community group about some of these paradoxes last week whilst looking at a passage in Galatians, and I talked about a mini revelation I once had when having a shower (when all the best revelations occur…well, then and when brushing your teeth, of course). My head was buzzing with different opinions I had come across about these issues, and I asked God who was right. I mean, somebody has to be…that's the way it works, right? He replied 'it doesn't matter who's right Katie. Don't worry about what other people believe and comparing yourself to them; you follow me' (just like He says to Peter at the end of John 21).

I'm not saying we should all stop discussing the Bible and the issues it raises; that's one of the best methods by which to understand it better, by wrestling with it like this, but often I get so caught up with   trying to work out the 'right' answer, that I miss the whole point of the Bible. It all points to Jesus, and what He did for us on that cross. And as Isaiah 55:8 says, we can't ever totally understand God's thoughts through our own anyway…they're on two completely different planes. It's like we spend our whole lives trying to work out the exact dimensions and physical properties of the man-made box which we put God in…I think we will get to Heaven and discover it's not a square box at all, but a circular room. Or like an ant trying to imagine London, but imagining it as being underground. We have such limited experience here on earth, and I think we will get to Heaven and realise not only did we not have the right answer, we weren't even asking the right question. God must be sat there saying to us, 'what are you doing? You're going the complete wrong way! You spend so long worrying about all these minor details, you're missing the whole point of what the Bible's there for in the first place'.

As I realise when I listen to really good worship songs, our faith is beautifully simple. It's all about God paying the price for us, and breaking all our chains. Lines like 'You did it for me, you did it for love' and 'my sins are washed away'. We need only to give our lives to Him, and pursue Him whole-heartedly (maybe the word 'only' is a bit misplaced there actually). But you know what I mean, it doesn't need to be so ridiculously complicated all the time. Yes we should never stop seeking the answers, but theology and intellectual thinking is only truly valuable if it is helping us to love God more. Otherwise, it gets in the way of our purpose, and Jesus' two primary commandments…love God, and love others. Yes, love can be the most complex thing in the universe, but it comes down to this simple truth:

The Creator God loves me enough to send His son to die for me.

And I will choose to base my life around this alone, because it has always been, and always will be, enough.

Imagined communities

I had a seminar last week where we talked about the concept of 'imagined communities'…basically the idea that there's no such thing as a genuine community in today's society, because we have so few face-to-face encounters with people, and that all our group identities come from 'imagined' communities. For example, every time the Olympics come around everyone is glued to the TV screen and shouting encouragement at athletes who can't hear them, like crazy people…and why? Because we want Team GB - I'm starting to feel patriotic even just saying it - to do well, and because we identify with Great Britain as a nation. But how many people in Great Britain do we actually know? Less than 0.01% (and even that is assuming you know 6400 people…no one's that popular). Even the way we want to standardise, define and protect our national languages comes down to this desire to share something with others in our nation, and distinguish ourselves from other nations. It all comes down to the idea that all communities are actually products of our imaginations, formed by shared interests between members and the exclusion of outsiders, to give us a sense of belonging and security. There's no such thing as a 'real' community.

How depressing.

Much as I respect the theorists who have put forward these ideas, I beg to differ. Yes it's true that we use language, nationality and other things to create a connection with others, and have a tendency to exclude others from these groups in order to make ourselves feel more included - this is a basic human principle which we can see in social groups everywhere. But I believe I have seen and experienced a true community, where the members are bound together by the strongest connection there is, and which strives to be fundamentally inclusive, not exclusive. Someone at my church here in Exeter said the church as a body should be 'exclusively inclusive', meaning that we should be nothing if not inclusive of all people. We should strive to love each other as Christ loves us - which is a lot - but also seek to love people outside our little clique which is the church just as much, and draw them in to our unimagined community.

When we're scared, we as humans seem to do one of two things (or most of the time both simultaneously, which never works…good one guys); either push people away out of fear and an instinct to protect ourselves, or blindly reach out for someone to hold on to. But what about when the people we reach out for don't catch us? Is that why we're so quick to shut down in order to protect ourselves? How do we change that instinct?

There are many things I'm passionate about, and one of the biggest is the church and community. I could never fit all my thoughts in to just one blog post, so consider this an introduction to what I hope will be a series of posts on people, belonging, church, relationship and how we find God in all of this. I'll talk about what I love about different communities I've been part of, what I struggle with, and what I think God has said to me about it all over the years…hopefully all in a concise and non-blabbery way. Hopefully.

I hope you enjoy it :)