When I Began Asking Again | A three-part journey through God’s character, the work of Christ and the meaning of judgment.
When I Began Asking Again
Reconsidering what I believed about God, judgment and the reach of grace.
In 2010, I began teaching a series through Romans called “The Wrath of God Is Fully Satisfied.”
I had taught through Romans before but this series had a new title.
At the time, I believed God’s wrath had been satisfied because He had poured His fury onto Jesus instead of us. Jesus stood between us and the anger I believed we deserved.
If Jesus weren’t in the way, we would be in trouble.
Almost as soon as I began the series, I sensed God asking me a question.
“Are you sure of this?”
I knew the answer.
“No. Teach me.”
That was the beginning of my freedom to ask questions I had carried for as long as I could remember.
I grew up Catholic. I had questions then but challenging a priest felt like stepping into territory that didn’t belong to me.
Who was I to ask?
And somewhere in my understanding of faith, fearing God seemed like a healthy thing to do.
I’m smiling as I write that. But the fear was real.
By young adulthood, I had quietly settled on the conclusion that I probably wasn’t going to make it to heaven.
That was where I had landed.
In late 1993, I came to a place of full surrender to God. After a short time in a North American Baptist church, I entered an Assemblies of God Bible college the following year.
Across those experiences, I learned the hellfire and brimstone message.
Turn or burn.
After graduation, I became a pastor and carried that message into my own teaching. To some degree, I was still carrying it in 2010.
But inside, something had never settled.
I kept hoping there was more.
I had learned answers. I had taught answers. Yet the uncertainty I had felt as a child remained with me as a pastor.
Then came that question.
“Are you sure of this?”
I want to be careful about how I tell this part.
I cannot point to one verse that suddenly resolved everything. What I experienced was an ongoing conversation with Holy Spirit. Moments of understanding came as I questioned, considered and listened.
That conversation continues today.
Sometimes it begins with little more than a thought I can’t leave alone.
What if we explored this?
What am I assuming here?
Could there be something I haven’t seen?
In 2010, the first change came almost immediately.
God is not mad.
Those words were liberating.
Until then, I had understood God’s acceptance of us through the fury He had unleashed on His Son. We were safe because Jesus had received what otherwise would have come toward us.
Now I was beginning to question that picture of God.
Was His love something Jesus had made possible by absorbing His anger?
Was the Father’s disposition toward us really what I had imagined?
“God Is Not Mad At You” became so significant that we immediately added it to our signage and literature.
I wanted people to hear it.
And almost immediately, something changed in how I saw them.
I stopped putting people into categories.
Saved.
Unsaved.
Completely lost.
Maybe there’s hope.
Those categories had shaped my understanding of the people around me. Now, when I looked at someone, I began noticing their pain. Their hopelessness.
I began to see “their souls”, if you will.
I couldn’t see anyone as beyond God’s love and acceptance.
That isn’t hyperbole. It seriously changed my lens.
I began to walk in love for all. I experienced it as God loving through me.
And when I say “all”, I mean that this change reached beyond people I liked or understood.
I couldn’t even look at someone like Charles Manson and conclude that God had stopped loving him.
His crimes were evil. They needed to be dealt with. Accountability mattered. So did the lives of those who suffered because of him.
But I could no longer pronounce him beyond the reach of God’s love.
That was how far this change went.
I still had questions about judgment, salvation and what Christ had accomplished. Those questions would require more thought and exploration.
But I could no longer look at another human being and believe God had given up loving them.
You might expect that I fought hard to preserve everything I had been taught.
I didn’t.
For years, I had hoped that I was wrong about some of it—really, most of it. That my teachers were wrong. That beliefs I had inherited and passed along might deserve another look.
When an understanding fell away, I often felt relief.
It was fresh air.
That doesn’t mean everything I believe today arrived in one moment. It didn’t. My understanding unfolded over time and it is still unfolding.
I also know that the relief I felt doesn’t settle every theological question. My experience is part of my story. You deserve room to examine the questions for yourself.
Perhaps you have carried some of them.
Perhaps your understanding of God brings you peace. Perhaps it brings fear. Perhaps you aren’t sure what you believe anymore.
I won’t assume where you are.
I know how long I lived with questions I was afraid to ask.
And I know what happened when I finally admitted that the answers I was teaching were answers I wasn’t sure of myself.
I don’t tell this story because I have reached the end of learning.
Five years from now, I hope I can look back at something I believe today, laugh and say, “Dang, what a heretic!”
I want to remain willing to discover that I have misunderstood something—even something I have confidently taught.
That willingness opened a door for me in 2010.
I began a series called “The Wrath of God Is Fully Satisfied” believing I could explain why God wasn’t angry with us anymore.
Then I sensed a question I could no longer avoid.
“Are you sure of this?”
For once, I let my uncertainty speak.
“No. Teach me.”
I’m still living in that conversation.
If a belief is true, it should survive another question.
──────── ✦ ────────
You’re not becoming.
You’re remembering.
— Wag
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