Stunted

Contemplating “Stunted”

As I drew this picture a vivid childhood memory came to mind.  I was standing on the sidewalk next to my elementary school.  My mother and Mr. Huff, the principle, were standing next to me.   We were looking up a long steep curved sidewalk admiring the huge new addition that more than doubled the size of the school.   I still remember how steep that sidewalk was had how large the new elementary school addition seemed.  But when I drive by my old elementary school today it looks much different than I remember.   That sidewalk isn’t very steep and that large building, well, it isn’t very large.  As we grow our perspective changes.  What seemed one way as a child seems much different as an adult.

Faith is the same.  Our eight-year-old theological beliefs, ideas, and structures fit us quite well when we were eight-years-old.  If, however, we continue to adhere to that same faith as grown adults we are bound to feel confined and frustrated.  We are trying to live and function in a faith that no longer fits.  I don’t believe this means God changes, I believe it means that as our hearts and minds become more open to God, God reveals to us a much larger faith then we could have imagined as a child.  This adult faith often requires much grappling but it is also one that is very spacious and wonderful and fits us quite well.

1.   What Scripture passages come to mind as you look as this picture?

2.   What happens when we have a faith that is a few sizes too small for us?

3.   What does a faith that is too small look like?

4.   What is the difference between this negative idea of a faith that is too small and the positive idea of having childlike faith?

5.   What tends to keep you confined in a smaller faith?

6.   Can your faith ever be too big?  Why or why not?