The In-Between

Well, the questions have begun. "Where are you?" "What's wrong?" "Have you been too busy to blog?" So I'm responding! I'm here. Nothing's wrong. And I just haven't had much to blog about.

My Intro to Biblical Studies is over in two days. Well, it's over for me tomorrow because I have to work on Friday. Tomorrow I will be spending the day at the library writing my final paper.

This week we have working on some of the difficult books of the Bible. I say difficult because they aren't necessarily shoved into a nice box. They have their own genre of writing prescribed to them: Psalms and Revelation. One author that we read this week spoke about the Psalms. Here's what he said (Dennis Bratcher in "Biblical Realism as Faith"):

We are used to seeing the Bible in terms of instructions from God thundered from Mount Sinai, the words of God through the prophets, the word of God pronouncing judgment on sin, or the promise of God's presence and grace in times of national calamity. We are not used to hearing the Bible much in its more human dimension, where the deep questions of human existence burst to the surface and explode to be hurled in the face of God. We too often assume that the entire Bible is either about proper piety, promises of hope, or judgment on sin.

And yet, most of us, in fact most of God's people throughout biblical times and through the ages, live in the "between" times, in the ordinary times where great events are long in the past or anticipated in the future. While much of the Bible recounts those high or low points of God's peoples' journey, most of their actual living was in the "between" times when ordinary day-to-day living had to be done. And in those ordinary times, life still happened. There were all the ups and downs of human existence, both joys and triumphs along with the tragedies and pain that accompany all human existence.

And so there were questions from God's people. They were the screamed questions of "why?" and "how long?" They were the reflective questions of "why do the wicked prosper?" They were the more deeply pious questions arising out of the darkness of human experience: "O Lord, why do you cast me off? Why do you hide your face from me?" (Psa 88:14). And they were the questions that could not even be framed as questions but hurled forth as curses, as the psalmist cried out the deepest of his own emotions: "May his memory be cut off from the earth. For he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted to their death. He loved to curse; let curses come on him" (Psa 109:16-17).

Most of us live in the "between" times. When nothing extraordinary is happening and nothing horrible is happening either. Just the everyday routine of living. And because of those expectations we find ourselves longing for something more. Or we interpret those times as God not being near. What I love about my God is that He created me to be a thinker with free will. He created me to ask questions, even of Him. He created me to continuously search Him out and sometimes that means that I am able to scream out to Him much like the Psalmters did. He created all of us this way.

It is not bad to question God. What's bad is not asking those questions that are burning in our hearts and instead walking away from Him because we don't understand and we aren't seeking to understand. God is revealing Himself to us everyday. Are we listening? Are we searching? Are we seeing? Or are we blindfolding ourselves, waiting for His opinions in hardest of times or in the best of times. It's in the in-between times that we have to be faithful, that we should be seeking Him out, asking the tough questions and leaning on Him for the answers.