You’ve been going to church for years and you are starting to wonder why. Or perhaps you are starting to question what you hear from the pulpit because it clashes with your experience. Then there is the age-old question of why a loving God can allow suffering.
These and other questions are not just intellectual exercises. They can lead you to the very core questions of life, of existence. Are we here by chance or by design? If by chance, then how do we explain the order in the universe? If by design, how is it that things go wrong?
How you feel about a Higher Being may be linked to how you feel about other people. How you relate to a such a Being will also be influenced by other relationships, the classic example of which is the difficulty seeing God as Father if your own father was abusive, violent or simply absent.
There is a balance to be struck between allowing Sacred Texts and spiritual tradition to explain your experience, and how your personal experiences challenge those texts and traditions.
My personal view is that it is a part of our humanity that we are free to ask questions and to seek truth and understanding. There is something uncomfortable about sitting with not-knowing, but paradoxically this can also be a place of peace.