Not Easy

Yesterday, I quoted from the Introduction to Adam Hamilton's book, Half Truths. Part of that quote said, "Some of these half truth are used to avoid careful thinking about complex issues."

I've said it before - Christianity is not easy. It is not Faith 101. Following Christ means considering each situation - it means that there is rarely black and white. When there is grace, there is gray. There is complexity. And in that, there is joy.

When we sell that process short - when we fail to delve into the complex and fall back on the easy, we short change our faith, and we turn our backs on the sanctifying grace that will help us to grow. 

It's too easy to say, "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Rarely does that kind of half truth get you to the full truth of what God means. God isn't simple - God is more complicated than we can understand - and yet, boiling faith down to the simplest phrases doesn't move us to any kind of underatnding or growth.