Rethinking

"But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites,

 in whose land you are living. 

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” 

--Joshua 24:15

There is a lot of "rethinking" going on these days.

The United Methodists invite us to "Rethink Church." During Lent, there is even a daily photo prompt to invite such rethinking and post the resulting photos on Facebook. 

We are invited to "Rethink Schools" and "Rethink Government."

I even saw an ad on a bus encouraging me to "Rethink Beer." 

The implication in each of these is that the way we are currently thinking is all wrong, so we'd best rethink [fill in the blank here] and change our ways.

But I am not sure I agree with that. I don't really believe an automatic "do-over," or throwing out the baby with the bathwater is necessarily the best way to rethink. 

What I do believe is that it is always a good time to take a step back and remember why we think-- or believe-- or drink-- what we do. 

It's a shallow faith, indeed, that simply states, "I believe it because my mother/ father/ Aunt Martha believed it." Or, "My family has always gone to that church, so now I do, too." 

That kind of faith is not likely to carry you through when life gets messy.

And believe me, it is inevitable. Life will get messy. 

So I invite you now, while life is relatively un-messy, to stop and think. Think about what you believe-- and why you believe it.

Do you believe, "Jesus loves me, this I know// for the Bible tells me so"? Or do you believe, "Jesus loves me, and in my life I have personally experienced the depth and breadth of that love, even when I felt unlovable to so many"?

When someone says, "God is good," do you reply without thinking, "ALL the time"? That's okay-- but now back it up. Where in your life have you experienced God's overwhelming goodness? 

Pause now for a few minutes. Take a rethink break. Reflect on who you are as a person of faith.

Remember-- and share. Tell another person, someone whose soul is hungry for more-- and maybe they don't know what it is they are hungering after. 

But you do. You understand what their souls are hungering for because you remember when your soul was hungry, and someone led you gently out of the darkness and into a place of spiritual food and light. Right?

The apostle Paul put it this way: "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me"(1 Corinthians 13:11).

Rethinking is a good thing. But it isn't throwing something out without good cause. It simply means that as we have walked forward on our journey, we may now understand things that were mystery before. And so we stop and listen and trust that the One who brought us this far is still with us, still speaking.

If you have chosen to trust in God, rethink what led you to this place of trust and belief. (If you have not chosen to trust-- well, maybe it is Time to rethink that, as well. Maybe it is Time for a change. Maybe God is working on your heart. Maybe there is an elephant in the attic with your name on it.)

Rethink. And choose this day whom you will serve. And be prepared, always, to explain why you have made the choice you did (1 Peter 3:15)-- and do so with gentleness and respect. And careful thought.

God gave us both a heart and a brain; why would God not expect us to employ them-- both? God is big enough, grand enough, Almighty enough to stand up to the closest scrutiny we can give. (Beer, on the other hand, may not require quite the same degree of rethinking.)

Choose for yourself. And choose wisely. 

Great God, may we never doubt that you are there, that you desire us even more than we desire you, and that when we question, seek-- even doubt-- and rethink, you are still here. Amen