Instant Internet, Instant Coffee, Instant God?

I was thinking about a time when I was sitting at my desk in my office in Cranbury and a woman called and told me that she was about to leave town. In fact, she said that the moving van was in front of her house at that very moment and was about to head out to her new destination. Then she told me that I had 5 minutes to convince her that there was a God.

Needless to say, I was more than slightly taken aback! Five minutes to convince someone that there was a God wasn’t covered in any of my classes at Princeton Theological Seminary. That’s a kind of slam-dunk style of ministry that is about as realistic as asking me to walk on water, which, by the way, wasn’t covered in any of my classes either.

I told her that it’s highly unlikely that anyone could do that, but I knew for sure that I couldn’t. And she responded rather sarcastically with, “I thought so.” And just when I was about to ask her what was going on for her, she hung up. I don’t know who she was. I didn’t recognize her voice, but I wondered if she had ever come to my church and if so, if something I had said misled her or disappointed her. We members of the clergy often feel terribly inadequate in helping people to experience God.

One thing I do know, though, is that everyone wrestles with his or her faith from to time. It’s not as if suddenly one day you never have any more doubts. Sometimes it’s because something has happened in the world at large or in our personal lives that raises the question, “Where is God in all this?” Sometimes it’s because we become disillusioned by something or someone we trusted.  Sometimes it’s because we have discovered some truth that is contradictory to what we were taught long ago. In one of his sermons, the great preacher Harry Emerson Fosdick told the story of his grandmother who said that if she discovered that Jonah wasn’t really swallowed by a great fish, then she couldn’t believe in Christianity any longer. He was pointing out that faith is a very delicate matter.  And, of course, it’s all due to the fact that we are human.

Within our human nature, though, is also our spiritual nature, waiting to be nurtured throughout the days of our human experience.

There is an indigenous story that goes like this:

            A grandfather was talking with his grandson one day and said, “I feel as if two wolves are fighting in my heart. One is vengeful, angry, violent, and the other is loving, compassionate, and strong.”

            The grandson asked the grandfather, “Which wolf will win the fight in your heart?”

            The grandfather replied, “The one I feed.”

                                                                        [Sandra Ingerman, How to Heal Toxic Thoughts]

That one line—“The one I feed”—is perhaps a clue to nurturing our spiritual natures.  Just a thought.