This past weekend, the memorial service for superstar Whitney Houston was broadcast on national television. The service, which was scheduled to about 2 hours, went for well over 4 hours in duration.
Interspersed in the many personal recollections that were shared were some very clear and powerful scriptural statements about the grace, mercy and forgiveness of God regardless of the circumstantial behavior of people in their lives. One can debate (and have debated) the “theologically” correct position for such broad statements. That is not my intent here. Rather, I want to say that hearing the passionate declaration of the goodness of God in the face of the fallen-ness of mankind was intriguing. To have people with such high profiles as Kevin Costner, Aretha Franklin and many, many others, intermingle some of their own personal spiritual journey into their recollection was quite fascinating.
All of this added to my own personal experience this weekend of conducting “the Reason for God” discussion forums that have been taking place at North Way Wexford over the last few weeks. One thing is clear in the midst of these conversations and recent dialogue around Whitney Houston’s death; people are asking eternal questions.
One way or another, everyone recognizes that life has a beginning point and an ending point and there are no exceptions. Some would like to think they’ll live forever but it’s never happened in human history and they recognize that they need to be prepared for life’s next destination.
One of the most helpful reasons for reading a book like “The Reason for God” is it gives you some tools with which to engage thoughtful people in a discussion of eternal things. It helps you know how to respond to honest (not combative) questions from people who are searching for God but have been put off by shallow religion or perhaps failed previous attempts to understand who God is.
This has renewed my desire to do what I can to create “on ramps” for people to discover the God of the Bible. How thankful I am that we have scripture as an authority, a source of truth outside of our own human experience which we can offer to people in times of profound soul searching as we’re seeing played out right before our eyes in this most recent week.
Looking forward to sharing more about this with you next time!
Blessings,
Pastor Jay
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