I don’t know about you, but my heart has been heavy the last couple of weeks.

There are moments in life that make us all stop and ask ourselves the most important questions in life. These questions are about purpose, priority, goodness, evil and the meaning of life.

Two weeks ago, while most of us were in bed, a gunman from an elevated position inside the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas shot down onto thousands of innocent people, hurting hundreds and killing at least 58.

Personally, my eyes haven’t left the news stations as I sit in disbelief over the evil and brokenness that are in our world. When you couple this with the hurricanes, wildfires and multiple crises overseas, it creates these “stop” moments where we evaluate our own beliefs … and inevitably questions:

“How could God allow this to happen?”

“Why do bad things happen to good people?”

“How can I keep me and my family safe?”

“Is God even real?”

These are good questions and worthy of conversation. You are not sinful or unfaithful for asking any of these. Unfortunately, many of us have been made to believe that to even question God or our faith is an “abomination.” Rather, we should put on the fake smiles and clique sayings and go about our days.

God takes no delight in a “fake it ‘til you make it” mentality. All over scripture we find encouragements to be real, raw, open and honest.

We find that Matthew writes in his account of Jesus’ life (Chapter 5) that those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, and those who are meek, all positions of brokenness, are blessed. There is no blessing in acting like everything is “all good,” nor is there any comfort.

Why? Because pretending produces independent people. A life that follows Jesus is exactly the opposite. We are fully dependent on Him for answers, guidance and mission. We can’t gain dependence until we admit that trying to be independent simply doesn’t work. “Pretending” is also a reason millennials are leaving the Church in droves. I’ll save that for another column.

Can I give you a peek into why we should never be afraid to question and wrestle with faith?

— The Spirit never disappoints. He imparts truth through scripture, other believers and through factual searches of the reliability of the resurrection.

— God’s not offended by your questions. You can’t read much in the Bible without finding someone of faith who wasn’t afraid to question God. Who told us we had to blindly believe? God didn’t.

3. You will find HIM, when you seek him with your WHOLE heart. Not just with the faithful parts of your heart and not just the brave parts of your heart. Both parts. (Jeremiah 9:13)

Let’s do this together Church. Let’s ask tough questions and be real, raw, and honest. Let’s not passively give up or quit challenging our “someone told us so” God. Let’s investigate Him on our own. What we will find out is that God is real, still on HIS throne, we are STILL the apple of His eye.

Adam Norsworthy has been the Family Pastor at Cornerstone Christian Church since February 2015.

Adam.norsworthy@gmail.com or 859-494-8445

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