Fierce Free and Full of Fire: 5-Day Devotional Sample

If you have some spiritual questions or new awareness, you can join the ranks of every serious Christian before you.  You are in good company. Don’t be shamed out of your search.  Questions have historically scared the establishment, because they threaten power structures.  More generously, most folks within the system just want to be faithful, and when someone challenges the tenets, it holds the possibility we were wrong or maybe just limited.

Having sorted through the Bible and all its teachings, it feels disorienting when someone else pushes hard on our conclusions.  We are not naturally good in this space.

Also worth noting is whether your questions are about structures (church policy or systems) or about interpretations (theology and Jesus).  These obviously cross over as theology informs structures (only men are in charge in certain branches, because they believe that is biblical), but sometimes you can parse out your questions by isolating them for scrutiny.

Systematically, no person of integrity could ever suggest one limb of the tree has it exactly right.  That is patently absurd.  There are more than nine thousand Protestant denominations alone.  There are also variations in every practice, liturgy, interpretation, organizing principle, spiritual expression, and leadership structure.

Most leaders in any sect will point to the Bible as their handbook, finding supporting evidence for their practices.  This is easily done considering the Bible was written in ancient, Middle Eastern context. 

Bewildered Christians often suggest that wrestling with theology indicates weakness and disobedience, but, beloved, this is simply not true.  I reject this accusation for you, for me, and the church.  Your questions mean nothing of the sort; they signal a heart after truth.