By April Terry (http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

I am going to be teaching about a topic and software package that I am still learning myself.  I’m a little unnerved about it, to be honest, but I was thinking that at least I have been studying up on it and feel that I am a little ready.  It’s the hardest thing to try to teach others things that we are still learning about and that brings me to the topic of faith.  Does anyone really know God?  

I think that my whole life has been highlighted by many many attempts to get to know God and know what I believe about Him.  In trying to discover God, I have formed some opinions.  Still, they are just that–ideas, opinions, faith.  So, why do some Christians just seem so sure that their interpretations are the right ones?

I may very well have the answer to that after my upcoming training session because sometimes the appearance of authority is often half way to being an authority of something, and it could be that I know a little bit more than those I am training.  All the same, in matters of faith, we really have to listen to a host of opinions and take an educated guess as to what school of thought we are going to hang our hat on.  Perhaps that’s the biggest reason that Jesus didn’t want any of us to judge, as tempting as it may be.  We’re all in a different state of learning.

Whenever someone tells me they “know” something about God, I get a little uncomfortable twitch going down my spine like an itch that you can’t reach.  I’ve made a lot of statements about God, but I usually try to couch those statements as opinion rather than going the “I know” direction.  That doesn’t minimize what I believe about God.  It only means that I leave myself open to being wrong.  I guess that’s what happens when you’ve been wrong about stuff as much as I have. 

You see, one of the things that makes conversations about God possible for me with all types of people is my availability.  I’m open to the possibilities that are out there, willing to accept that my ideas aren’t necessarily the whole truth, and willing to listen.  It’s fair game in a conversation about faith to be willing to hear the ideas of others as well as being willing to speak your own ideas so I share my ideas, but I listen as well.  One-upmanship won’t do either.  Haven’t we all known that person who would one-up everything we said or did?  If we were sick, they had typhoid fever.  If we won the lotto, they were already a self-made millionaire.  After a while, that person’s opinions become null and void.

Nobody likes being around a know-it-all because they don’t listen-they tell.  They tell us their truth and expect us to agree, but they don’t leave an opening for other ideas.  A know-it-all doesn’t learn anything new because they don’t choose to.  If we are to be able to talk and discuss openly our faith, we have to leave knowing behind and venture into the world of wonder and hope where we’re still able to remain open to the possibilities that others have to offer.  It doesn’t deconstruct weak faith, but instead makes weak faith stronger and it makes us accessible to the wonderful give and take of ideas.