FROM SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR, BOBBIE BEGGS-SARGENT
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech…”
I recently spent 6 days in Yellowstone NP towards the end of September. It was the 75th Anniversary of A Christian Ministry in the National Parks (acmnp.org) and we gathered to celebrate all that it has done since the idea for it sprung to the founder’s mind as he worked at Old Faithful. I have served 3 summer seasons with this group and am on their National Advisory Council. Christians who apply to ACMNP get placed in workplaces in National Parks around the country. They work, minister to those around them and offer worship services on Sundays at the campgrounds. It’s good, tough, stretching and fun work in amazing places. I resonate with this ministry - I also see God more clearly in creation and I like to help others worship God in these beautiful settings.
“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech…” says Psalm 19, going on to say that there is no language where nature’s proclamation is not heard.
When I was younger, hiking and horseback riding in New Jersey, Vermont, the Adirondacks and New Hampshire, I sensed this voice and saw evidence of God in what he had made. Having been raised in the church, I clung to these evidences or maybe, honestly, just glimpses of God, even as I didn’t have the words to express what I was noticing. It brought me peace and affirmation in what I believed. All through college, I didn’t engage in explaining or defending my faith in the Triune God in what was an antagonistic environment - but I quietly held on to it. God was there and I knew it.
I let my non-Christian boyfriend know that I had a distinct sense my faith was going to become even stronger as I got older and became more free to be myself. I had him promise, before we married, to 1) investigate the faith seriously sometime and 2) not prevent me from worshipping God. He agreed to these requests. (I’m not sure what I would have done if he hadn’t, because I did love him. Fortunately, that didn’t become an issue and we married.)
From my growing up, being quiet about and, in many ways, hiding my faith, I grew comfortable with living with questions. I think part of it was that I didn’t think there would be answers and I didn’t want my faith to crumble. I also didn’t really know how to ask the questions I had; there were too many and many of them were simply vague, uneasy feelings. I’m not sure how I picked up the idea that I shouldn’t have questions, that I couldn’t poke at these things and dive deeper, but I somehow did. I felt like my questions were more like doubt – and that doubt was bad.
Thankfully, shortly after our marriage, while trying to reconnect with another young couple we met and spent some time with while vagabonding and working our way through Europe, God brought my new husband and I to a Christian study center in Switzerland called L’Abri Fellowship. There, we were both encouraged to ask any honest question we had about the faith. The folks who worked there said that God could handle it. They listened to us and helped us to find answers through group or one on one discussions, books, and lecture tapes that they thought dealt with at least part of the question. Importantly, there was no pressure to believe a certain way – or even believe at all. They let us be who we were.
My husband became a Christian there fairly quickly. I took longer to actually unearth and be real about my long-buried questions. But I went at it. Finally, I answered enough questions for me to feel like there were answers for them all, even if I hadn’t yet asked them all or figured everything out. In other words, I still had questions, and accepted that I’d likely have more as time went on. Now, though, I held them with a different level of deep confidence in God and a stronger faith. Also, I grew to realize that some questions would never be fully answered, but I could trust God while living with even those questions.
We left L’Abri Switzerland that time changed. My husband was now a Christian and I was a grounded one, who no longer worried my faith would collapse like a house of cards if I poked at it too much. We could go into the world of beauty and thank God for it, together. For a while, we made a habit of giving God a standing ovation at particularly beautiful spots in nature – and we’ve seen many of them as we’ve traveled and hiked or backpacked. I see the hand of the Maker of heaven and earth in so many places and in so many creatures. My younger self was not wrong to sense God in these places and now I see him even more clearly.
I do still have questions. But I feel okay with them. Some I answer along the way, some I may never this side of heaven. Asking questions and encouraging others to ask their own is pivotal to my work in ministry now, as a spiritual director and a supporter of those who run the Alpha course. So, my life of question-holding and question-asking, well practiced through the years, has turned out to be an important part of who I am. I do relish helping others voice their doubts and questions, knowing that this will help them gain more clarity themselves. And I am open about the questions I’ve had and continue to have, hoping this will help people relax, be real about who they are and what they think, and trust that God can – and wants to - handle their real questions.
If you are longing for some space to be with God and perhaps linger with your questions in an environment of quiet restfulness, join us on December 5th for our annual Advent Day Apart retreat!