“It is what it is.”
There was a period of time in my life when I absolutely grew to hate this response. It was the first year of my life after I got saved (in college), and now faced with the new reality of a brand new outlook on life, I heard this answer a lot in response to a host of questions I still had.
I wholeheartedly embraced Christ in my life now, but the chains of my skepticism in my past life still bound me - skepticism that instead of being pugnacious was now bathed in a healthy curiosity. I had basic practical questions and “it is what it is” was NOT a good enough answer.
“Can someone fall away from the faith?”
“Who decided what books go in the Bible?”
“What does ‘forever’ mean?”
“What’s the deal with angels and demons?”
“Where are dinosaurs in the Bible?”
The landing spot of my questions by default went to my new Christian community, who wisely and graciously taught me about self-feeding and studying Scripture.
So I studied….and studied…and studied.
What soon happened was my head became filled with information and facts, giving rise to a feeling of superiority and pride. It was as if I had a vendetta against someone for never telling me this stuff and now the world was going to hear about it, even if it meant hammering them in the head with it.
It was not until I started in vocational ministry when texture and the “pastoral” voice began to develop…out of sheer necessity…when I realized that most people were afraid to ask the same questions that I had when I first came to faith. Students especially.
It is with this motivation, in concert with the leading of the Holy Spirit, that beginning in January in TeenRock, we will be going through a new series titled, “No Such Thing as a Stupid Question,” where we address pressing questions on the hearts of our students.
Most important in the delivery of this series will be an emphasis on the Gospel and how the answers to questions must undergird and not replace a heart to see the lost redeemed.
This is going to get fun.
