I need to open this blog post with a very important statement:

Christians aren’t perfect.

Ok, I realize that it’s not the most earth shaking declaration ever made. As obvious as this thought is, it is critically important, not only for Christians to remember, but for Christians to own in the presence of others. We are not perfect in our understanding or in our behavior, in our orthodoxy or orthopraxy. We don’t have it all figured out. There is a ton we don’t know, and the stuff we do know is connected to our growth, and may change or develop over time. For instance, we may know at age 7 that certain foods make us feel poorly. It may not be until our teen years that we discover a gluten intolerance or allergy of some sort to explain the sickness. It might be even later still that we realize that we are allergic to lemons and not all citrus fruits. In much the same way, people who attempt to relate to and follow God are in process, and we should be ok with that. After all, our faith is not built on the amount of knowledge or facts about God that we possess. It’s based on a relationship with God, a relationship that He initiated and sustains.   To posit either explicitly or implicitly that you have to have a perfect understanding of all things scientific, philosophical, literary, and theological in order to relate to God is terrifying and simply untrue. The story of the Bible is a story of a God who is bigger than our ignorance, bigger than our rebelliousness, and bigger than our immoral thoughts and practices.  (And yes, we all have all three of those). The journey away from our ignorance, fear, and hatred is one that God wants to take with us, not one that He demands we take forHim.

So, if you don’t have it all figured out, welcome! You are in good company, and you are loved by the God who alone knows and understands it all.