Many times Christianity feels like a very mystical religion. The virgin birth. Salvation. Forgiveness. It’s all these abstract concepts that are hard to fully grasp in our concrete minds.
When we can’t understand or explain things, we can tend to push the questions to the back of our mind and end up living either apathetically towards the hard things of the Gospel or simply walking away from Christianity altogether.
Neither of these responses are truly satisfying.
When you sit in a quiet room by yourself, both of those responses leave you wondering if maybe, just maybe, you’re missing out on something?
After years of people in the church telling me “there are just some things you won’t understand on this side of heaven” and me trying to just keep my mind disengaged from the hard things of God, there came a point in my mid 20’s when I decided to take I Corinthians 2:11 and John 14:16 serious.
“no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God“
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you”.
According to these verses, the Spirit of God, who lives inside believers, comprehends the thoughts of God AND will teach us all things. Therefore, we don’t have to disengage our minds to be followers of Christ. God has given us His Spirit to teach us. We just have to be willing to be taught.
In fact, maturing in your faith often requires you to engage your mind in these hard things of God. Here’s a few ways I’ve found to wrestle through these hard concepts and help with understanding the Bible.
First, identify something your mind has a hard time grasping, understanding, or believing.
For me, one of the last things I wrestled through was with the blood of Christ. The idea that His blood must be shed AND his body broken seemed extreme in some senses and gruesome in others. I had read through every Old Testament account, and I knew the intellectual reasons why, but it was still hard for my mind to be thankful and emotionally engaged and not somewhere in the back of my mind question why God needed both of those. Why death in and of itself wasn’t simply enough? Identifying one of those issues in your own mind is the first step in wrestling with God.
Second, pray and ask God, through his Spirit, to give you understanding of the thoughts of God about this particular issue.
This doesn’t mean every second of every day you have to be in prayer about this topic, but it does look like you frequently asking God to lead you to understanding. Often asking God for help to understand ends up looking a lot like the father in Mark 9 who wanted his son healed. In part of the father’s brain, he knew Jesus could heal his son, but the other part of his brain wanted to hedge his bets so he wouldn’t be disappointed if Jesus didn’t come through. So he asked Jesus, “If you can” will you heal my son? Jesus replied to this man “If you can’?…“Everything is possible for one who believes”.
The man’s response to Jesus’ statement should be ours as well as we pray for understanding of the hard concepts. “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)
Third, put some work in.
God has given you his Word so dive in and get to work understanding the Bible. Use a study Bible and look up a key word in the concordance. Then read every single verse having to do with that word. I spent hours reading and rereading every verse through the entire Bible that had the word “blood” in it. Write the verses out, pray through the verses, cross reference the verses with other places in the Bible. Use Biblegateway.com and look at the verses in multiple translations and paraphrases. The point is chase after God on whatever you are wanting to understand and He will help you.
Wrestling with God isn’t just a statement saying you need help understanding the Bible.
It is you humbling yourself, admitting your thoughts are not His thoughts and His ways are not your ways, begging Him to give you the understanding and wisdom He has promised, and then putting yourself in the presence of God continually so the Helper can teach you.
It’s not easy to wrestle with God, and it takes work on your part. But don’t be scared. Identify an area in your walk with the Lord where you desire greater understanding and start to press into that topic. Let God reveal himself to you as you wrestle through the hard things.
I promise you it will be worth it.
You Might Also Want to Read:
- The Spiritual Disciplines: Ways to Pursue Personal Godliness
- Waiting on God in the Midst of His Silence
- How to Let God Give You Rest
Check out these step by step instructions to help you read your Bible and study God on your own.
Photo by Ben White on Unsplash
Great post Kari! I love how you break down the steps to help us overcome our questions about God and the Bible. So helpful! Pinned to revisit again.
Thank you for writing this article!
I throughly enjoyed it.
This is such an insightful post, Kari! I have written about “wrestling with God,” but have not approached it from the perspective of how to practically push through the wrestling. So helpful!
You provided a great resource for us to approach God with our difficult questions. It is helpful for me to see these ideas. Thanks for sharing.
I appreciate your reminder to put some work into. Studying the Word of God isn’t always easy. We have to wrestle with the hard parts, but when understanding comes, how wonderful!!
My prayer is for wisdom and discernment. A really encouraging post to think about some difficult points!
Kari this is very encouraging. I have so many questions that I may not have answers for until I see God on the other side. But as I grow in my ‘knowing’ of God’s goodness and His character, I have been able to trust more that He is working it all out for my good.
Kari, I love this. “Identify what you don’t understand. Ask God for help with it. Put some work in.” Couldn’t be clearer. People need to know that others sometimes struggle too and you spoke so openly about that. But, then you lead the reader to pursue God through His word. Great post!
I so appreciate your encouragements, especially the one to put some work into it! The Lord loves those who seek Him!
This is so promising, Kari!
Knowing “we don’t have to disengage our minds to be followers of Christ” is such a comfort and I’m sure news to a lot of us who grew up in church. Thank you for laying out the 2 verses that tell us how Holy Spirit provides us with understanding!
I love using the Blue Letter Bible app for the commentaries. My go to resource are those by David Guzik, which can also be found online, too. It’s made a HUGE difference in my understanding so wanted to share.
I love that app too!! It is so helpful! Thanks for sharing.
You’ve addressed a topic that is so important! And God promises that we can gain tons of understanding into his word, even the hardest issues, with the Holy Spirit’s help. This is still so amazing to me! Thanks, Kari, for sharing your personal experience in studying the word “blood” in the Bible.
Prayer for guidance from the Holy spirit is very important and then of course we have to actually listen. I think often we have the problem that we so easily forget what we have read and then are lazy sometimes and just believe whatever we hear someone else say. So important to have advice from the Spirit and not from those who think they know.
Amen! Thanks for writing this blessing, Kari! I appreciate the authenticity that you shared and how to navigate these difficult topics! Blessings!