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#AdventBookClub: Day 33: Questioning

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Today’s reading is really helpful – Maggi draws on Psalm 119:25-32 to deal with the question of whether it’s “better” to meet God via revelation (as the shepherd’s did), or via intellectual study (as the wise men did) … and that there is a “danger” in asking questions of our faith. My Winchester housegroup often discussed this, to this kind of end:

… I found that being allowed to believe in a God who could stand up to any amount of questioning, however, hard, made God seem more believable to me, not less… I was delighted to find that it was not only allowable to think very hard and ask any and every question, but that letting the awkward and answerable questions out into the open began to strengthen rather than weaken my faith.

Those questions will still be there, except that they will plague without answer. I’m very uncomfortable with people who have a black/white notion of all answers to faith:

The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know. — Socrates

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#AdventBookClub: Day 29: Fear Not

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Some thoughts from Maggi Dawn today

  • … the phrase ‘Fear Not’ appears 366 times in the Bible – one for every day of the longest year.
  • We cannot look in the face of God but we can look into the face of Jesus
  • Truly great people rise above the need to impress others with how great they are.
  • Sometimes we make the business of sharing faith far too complicated, as if we need to be world experts on the subject before we can open our mouths.
  • …the meaning of Christmas is that God loves us so much, he cannot bear to be without us..

How do we take the message of Christmas and act upon it … ensuring that it lasts throughout the year, and we don’t put it aside as ‘Christmas finishes’.

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Why was David so emotionally up and down? @biblegateway

Psalm 13:1–5

Within five verses David moves from spiritual despair to hope, from gut-wrenching, internal wrestlings to complete trust and from deep sorrow to rejoicing. What causes these dramatic turnabouts?

One explanation may be that David’s psalms are simply snapshots of his feelings. As he gradually worked through issues, he returned to his confidence in God. But it may have happened more slowly than it would appear from reading the compressed account in these few verses.

Another explanation may be that David knew how to express feelings and faith simultaneously. Perhaps David revealed his emotions on one level while on another level he told what he actually believed.

David’s mood changes reflect the feelings of normal people struggling with their faith. Perhaps that’s why so many people can identify with Psalms with all its ups and downs.

From an email sent by Bible Gateway..