Hurricanes have been front and center in the news. Recently, there was just a minor disturbance down in the Gulf of Mexico near Cuba. Computer models were making predictions about where it would end and its strength. Our local weather forecaster kept repeating that things could change regardless of what the models from a week out showed and that we needed to not panic but get prepared. I’ve experienced enough hurricanes to know they come in all different sizes and strengths. They change direction based on where the eye is formed, steering winds and currents, water temperature, other weather systems, and time over water to develop strength. When hurricanes get closer to landfall, more models point to where a hurricane will end up with more certainty. Still, there is variability and they often tell us where it came ashore either after it happens or right as it happens.

And as I thought about it, it occurred to me that people’s thoughts about God, their theology, forms due to many factors and may be true or completely off base. That is why I think it is so important to examine our own thinking about God, to scrutinize it, to ask God for guidance and wisdom to see if we are heading in the right direction and make corrections. It is a humbling, daunting, but worthy task to ask God to refine us through His word! He will complete this task when we take our last breath. We never arrive, but can be sure of our salvation if we keep longing for God and seeking His will.

This may make you ask, “Isn’t being a Christian just asking forgiveness for our sin, accepting Jesus as our Savior, and telling others? It is that simple. But that is a beginning point as well. Because God gave us creation, Scripture and the Holy Spirit to grow to know Him better. Because the better we know God, the more we will love Him and share the love of God with others. Because the dark spirits in the world today want to pull us away from God or at least make us ineffective witnesses to the difference that God makes in us. Would you describe your faith as mainly hot, tepid, or cold? Why do you think you ended up at this temperature? If we are mainly tepid or cold, with the help of the Holy Spirit and some spiritual work to counter the temptation to only see the world in front of us, we can get back on track.

From the illustration, I try to show that there are many ways we can veer off track. When that happens we are no longer growing and we may lose sight of the vow we made with Jesus to follow him and die to ourselves. One thing I do is ask God to help me not veer off, and to help me understand. Ultimately, God through the Holy Spirit, keeps us headed toward him.

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As my attempt at an illustration shows, the horizontal lines are influences on our journey. The beginning point is our lived experience which includes events like miracles, an exposure to history (biblical and secular), religious experiences and things that shaped us that could have been good or bad personally, and secular experiences. From this we begin to form our theology (thoughts about God). There are many other religions, but I only listed the three that have Biblical Scripture in common. Our experiences on any of the horizontal lines can send us off in misunderstanding who God is and who we are. The vertical line includes Scripture and the Holy Spirit (which includes prayerful conversation). These are our compass for truth. The interpretation of Scripture is for another blog!

What do you think about these ideas? Would you agree or do you think I am off base?