God Can Handle Your Questions

As a journalist, I make my living asking questions. 

Questions are important. Questions are vital to our lives because, as limited humans, we don’t know everything we need to know, and we don’t know most of the things we want to know.

A lot of times in journalism and reporting, it’s about asking the right question, not necessarily the right amount of questions. A journalist at the White House recently got in trouble for asking the president supposedly “too many” questions, and while I won’t get into the politics here, I can see both sides’ frustrations in that issue. Sometimes you can be pesky and ask the wrong questions and be obnoxious.

Recently, I’ve been asking a lot of questions of God, particularly as it relates to the Bible, Christian culture and my personal choices and experiences in life. I won’t get into those questions here — maybe someday — but it’s caused me to think about how we in the church handle people questioning God.

For many, I believe, church isn’t the place where difficult questions can be asked safely. Questions like “How can I be saved?” and “Can I join the church?” are pretty easy to handle, I think, but there are some that we as a body of Christ don’t always do a good job responding to well, particularly when it comes to doubts over the reliability of the Bible and certain political positions.

As I’ve wrestled with questions of my own, I’ve come to one particular answer: God can handle our questions. He can handle when we doubt Him. He isn’t put off by us wondering whether or not He’s right. In fact, as we can see in a few passages of Scripture, He isn’t despondent or critical when we wonder whether or not He’s all He claims to be. He’s the exact opposite.

The Meat and the Fleece

The story of Gideon is fairly well-known if you’ve been in church for a while, but I’ll give the short version.

In Judges 6, God is shown to be pretty upset at Israel, His chosen people, so he gives them over to the military might of the Midianites and Amalekites. One day, “the angel of the LORD,” often believed to be Jesus Himself, comes to a guy named Gideon (v. 11), and tells him that he will lead the army of Israel against Midian. 

Twice, Gideon asks God to show him a sign. First, in v. 17-24, the angel of the LORD sets meat and cakes on fire via supernatural spontaneous combustion from a rock. Then in v. 36-40, God twice made a fleece wet with dew while keeping the ground around it dry.

God had spoken to Gideon and directly told him, “Hey man, you’re going to lead the army of Israel against Midian, your country’s oppressors, and I’m going to give you the victory.” 

But my man Gideon — seeing himself as “the least in (his) father’s house” and part of the “weakest” clan in his country (v. 15) — doubted. He asked God question after question, even put Him to the test with the fleece. Both times, God answered Gideon’s questions. In the next chapter, God used Gideon and 300 men to defeat a whole army of Midianites. It was the original 300.

This is not the only time in Scripture God responds to questions of those He calls. 

I think also of Moses in Exodus 3 — “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Then there’s Jeremiah in the first chapter of his eponymous book —“Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.” 

All of these men questioned God’s call on their lives, His specific, pointed direction for their future. But instead of belittling them and ignoring them, He went a step further and spoke directly to their fears. God Himself even initiated physical contact with a man (Jeremiah 1:9) and turned a staff into a snake (Exodus 4:3), as well as His multiple interactions with Gideon.

If God can handle their questions, He can handle yours.

Are Doubters and Questioners Really That Bad?

An article on the popular evangelical website The Gospel Coalition sparked my thought process and interest in this topic.

Posted on Nov. 13, writer Alisa Childers’ “3 Beliefs Some Progressive Christians and Atheists Share” caught some flack from people on my Twitter timeline, especially for this final paragraph:

“After all, the contemporary views that many people call ‘progressive’ aren’t progressive anyway: they’re very old, echoes of that primordial question, ‘Did God really say’ (Genesis 3:1), signs of the most wicked rebellion imaginable. And we all know where that ends up.”

In the piece, Childers criticized the thoughts and positions of authors like Rachel Held Evans, Peter Enns and Rob Bell who have expressed doubts about the traditional understanding of the Bible. Childers’ reasoning was that doubting and questioning that understanding was one of the first steps to complete atheism. She extended that criticism to those who “may have an unresolved answer to the problem of evil” and “may affirm a culture-adapting morality.”

Along with quoting some of her targets’ work out of context — Evans’ book Inspired, which Childers quoted multiple times and I have read personally, was the most misunderstood — Childers’ article left little room for conversation, understanding and nuance. Instead of trying to really understand where people were coming from and speaking directly to their doubts and questions, she name-dropped those who don’t fall exactly in line with the traditional evangelical thinking and ignored the nuance and stories of their lives.

And here’s the final issue: by comparing these modern “progressive Christians” to the devil himself, she’s also comparing Gideon, Moses and Jeremiah to the serpent. Those men questioned God’s word to them to His face! Gideon was like, “So God, I know that you told me this, but did you really? Prove it to me.” Moses was like, “No, I mean, I know you said this, but I can’t do that. Are you sure you got it right?” Jeremiah, likewise, basically said, “Um, I can’t speak for you, I’m not good enough. You must have picked the wrong dude.”

It’s in these rough assessments like Childers’ piece of questions and those who question that we as the Church lose the skeptics. We don’t make ourselves as accessible as our God is to those who doubt and those who wonder. 

The Holes in the Hands

My new favorite story about doubt and questions is found in John 20:24-29. It’s about “Doubting Thomas,” which is really an unfortunate nickname because we tag the guy with a very small part of his life.

Jesus has recently resurrected Himself and has spent time amongst the disciples, save for the deceased Judas and Thomas. For whatever reason, the latter wasn’t with them the first time. The other disciples told him, “Hey man, we saw Jesus. It was sweet!” He responded, quite rationally, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe” (v. 25).

A little more than a week later, Thomas and the disciples were “inside again” — which I assume means that they were dining on some KFC and playing Boggle — and even though the doors were locked, Jesus showed up. The Scripture records that He goes to Thomas and says, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe” (v. 27). Instantly, Thomas believes.

Jesus took some time — eight days, in fact — to answer Thomas’ doubts, but He answered them. He came to Thomas directly and said, “Hey man, here’s the answer.” Jesus, God Himself, was willing to acquiesce to the questions of man and the doubts of those who questioned Him. 

We have no right to question Thomas’ questions. Indeed, how often do we doubt something true we hear about Jesus? That He is with us in the storm? That He loves us in our sin? That He really wants what’s best for us? 

Doubt and questioning in and of itself is not sinful. Exploring those doubts and seeking answers to those questions is not sinful in and of itself. As the body of Christ, we must give the Thomases, the Moseses, the Gideons and the Jeremiahs the room to explore their doubts and questions. We must be willing to walk alongside them as they seek answers, not immediately write them off as “not believing the right thing” and certainly not comparing them to Satan. As Paul told the Areopagus in Acts 17, God made men “that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him…he is actually not far from each one of us” (v. 26).

God can handle your questions. May we be a church that does the same.

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Being ‘On Fire for God’ Isn’t Easy for Anxious and Depressed Christians Like Me.

Perhaps the most common response people with anxiety and depression get from others when they bring it up is this: “Just move on. Deal with it and move on.” There seems to be this expectation that, like most people, those dealing with mental disorders have some masterful ability to control their emotions.

This is far from true.

At this very moment, I am depressed. In the past 12 hours, I’ve experienced immense anxiety. And I can’t seem to push it away. I’m trying to deal with the emotions, the anxiety and the depression, but it doesn’t seem to leave. I’ve prayed, I’ve thought about biblical truth, I’ve listened to worship music. I’ve done everything I can think to do, and I’m still in this rut.

One of the most difficult questions that people like me – Christians who struggle with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety – face is this: how do we relate to God when our emotions are so far out of order?

Far too often in the Church today, in modern Christian culture, we talk about the stirring of the emotions, of the affections, for God. We should be in awe of His power. We should be amazed by His grace. We should be joyfully overwhelmed by His love. We should be avoiding worry, stress, doubt. We should be “on fire” for God.

All these “should” statements sound great on the surface.

But these are all statements based in a controlling of the emotions and directing them in a certain place. For some of us, that’s not so easy.

There are many blog posts, articles and even books dedicated to how to pursue God when He “feels far away.” But what if He always feels far away? What if we feel so distant from Him every single day?

As someone who deals with anxiety and depression, I’m constantly battling my feelings. I have a tendency to feel sad or feel bad. How I often interpret this is an assumption that God is unhappy with me and I must do something good to feel better, which is a sign that God is happy with me. So often that’s how we all interpret our feelings.

An article on Christianity Today about not feeling close to God said this:

So, next time you don’t “feel” like a Christian, do a gut check. Go to God and ask, “Have I sinned against you?” (See Psalm 139:23-24.) If you determine your bad feelings are a result of sin, ask God to forgive you. And ask the Holy Spirit to help you go on walking with God.

And think about those times when you’re on fire for God. What are you doing during those times that gives you joy? You’re probably reading your Bible, spending time in prayer, hanging out with Christians, going to Bible studies, telling others about your faith.

These are the kinds of things you need to do regularly and consistently. As you do, I think you’ll experience fewer and fewer roller-coaster rides and that fire will burn stronger all the time.

For a Christian dealing with depression and anxiety on a regular basis, the rules are a little different. Studying the Bible and praying don’t necessarily help. Heck, when I’m depressed, I don’t want to do those things. All I want to do is stay in bed, play video games, watch Netflix, and waste away in a heap of self-pity.

It’d be so easy for someone to say to me: “Just push through.” So easy to say when you’re not in the midst of it. And most of the time that’s what I find myself doing because there are not many people who want to dive in and help those of us who are struggling with these things.

So how do I follow Jesus?

There is an emotional side to our faith, true. God can use our emotions to lead us to a place where we are in desperate need of Him or where we’re overjoyed at His provision in our lives. But nowhere in Scripture does it say we have ultimate control over our emotions. Nowhere does it say where we need to have our emotions always attuned properly. In several places, the New Testament instructs us to be “sober-minded,” which means to not be led by our emotions.

What the Bible does tell us to do is to bank on truth all the time. The Bible itself is truth and gives us plenty of pieces of truth to hold onto.

But for those of us with anxiety and depression, it’s a lifelong fight. One worth fighting. But it’s exhausting. It’s tiring. It’s overwhelming. It’s not simply as easy as read your Bible, pray a prayer, go to church. Some days are awful.

I wish I could end this with a happy ending, but not everything is happy.

God gives us grace and love all day, every day. This truth is beautiful and hope-giving.

But joy isn’t as easy to find. Especially when you don’t feel it. And I know joy isn’t necessarily a feeling. But it’s hard to have that attitude, especially when you don’t feel it.

Clinging to the Only Truth I Know Will Hold Me: A Poem

Note: A poem about the faithfulness of God’s Word for someone dealing with an anxiety disorder. I’ve had a rough weekend with my anxiety over the last couple days. When it’s high, it’s so hard to trust anything, even the Word of God. This poem is a reminder to you, but most importantly to me, of how much I need to hold onto that Word that will never leave me high and dry.

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Can I explain to you the importance of God’s Word?

See, my mind wanders a lot.
It goes back and forth, forth and back
I’ve learned I can’t really trust myself,
because my anxiety makes my brain lack.

What does it lack, you ask?

Peace, assurance, confidence, trust.
Oh, I want these things. I beg for these things.
But it seems that God doesn’t hear.
Those things, it doesn’t seem He brings.

I’ve been mad before.

Oh I’ve been furious. Pissed. Ticked.
Wondered how a good God could leave me like this.
I can’t trust myself? Seriously?
It seems my thought life’s been given a death kiss.

So what can I do?

The one and only hope I have
is clinging to the Word that always gives back.
The Word that says I’m loved
and God’s patience with me will never crack.

What does that Word say to me?

It says He’ll never leave nor forsake
though my mind wanders and doubts that all day.
It says He’s on my side all the time,
even when I feel the furthest away.

It says His love is greater than sin.
All I must do is let it in.

It says His patience is unparalleled,
so my heart will always be held.

It says don’t lean on my understanding
but trust Him with all, a sure standing.

It says He’ll support the blameless and meek
every single stinkin’ day of the week.

It says He’ll make straight my path
and overcome my foolish mental math.

See, if we’re to believe Romans 8:39,
that nothing can separate us from God’s love,
I need to hold onto that promise
even though it seems there’s no help from above.

Because my mind lies to me.

And I hate that every day.

But with God’s Word on my side,

I’ll be able to say,

I’m forgiven and loved, no matter how I feel.
I can trust Him with all, even when it seems unreal.
He’ll catch me when I fall, and hear my appeal.
It’s the only truth I know will hold me; it’s set in steel.

Wanna Know What Terrifies Me? Death.

I’m a pretty fearful guy. I’m scared of a lot of things. Bugs, taking risks, going into the unknown. But nothing scares me more than death.

I was reading the story of Lazarus in John 11 this morning and I began to ponder death, when it comes, how I’ll feel, etc. There’s a very real possibility that I won’t be able to contemplate my death before it comes. I could die in a car accident, in a murder, a surprising heart attack. But I could also die a slow, peaceful death, in which I’ll have hours or maybe even days to think about what is going to happen.

As a Christian, I’m supposed to have assurance of what is next: eternity with God, streets of gold, all that jazz. And that’s awesome! I love it. But am I the only one who gets freaked out when thinking about all those things?

Dying is something that we have no firsthand experience of until it happens. Unlike a first marriage, first kid and many other firsts we hear about from others, we can’t speak to someone who has died about the experience of death. And then when we die, we can’t send word back to earth about it. I’ve often thought about if it was possible for me to send a “message in a bottle”-type word to friends and family when I’ve died, but I don’t think that’s a real thing. Sounds like something out of a movie.

Because of this lack of firsthand knowledge about how it goes, death freaks me out. And then another puzzling question comes.

What if I’m wrong about Jesus? What if there is nothing when we die? What if I’ve believed the wrong thing? What if, what if, what if?

I’d love to be able to tell you that I’m consistently trusting in God’s plan for me after my life here on earth is through, but I can’t. I have doubts. I have worries. I have concerns. Trying to contemplate the afterlife gives me a headache, I think because it’s such a mysterious, complex thing our feeble brains can’t handle.

To be honest with you, I’d love a Defending Your Life-type heaven where we get to eat as much food as we want and it’s all good and we play mini-golf and ride trams and just hang out with people for a few days. It seems quite relaxing, except for the whole judging-you-off-of-what-you-did-with-your-life part.

Back on the subject: I know that I have nothing really to worry about. If you’re in Christ, your future is secure and you are safe from eternity apart from God because of the blood of Jesus Christ. And I think it’s necessary for me to remind myself of this truth because my doubt comes very often.

There’s nothing wrong with doubting every once in a while. Doubt is something that’s a natural part of life because, as we said before, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the end from firsthand experience.

But for me, the hope and grace of the Gospel gives me comfort unlike anything else in these moments. I won’t believe the Gospel every minute of every day, unfortunately. That’s just real life. I have doubt and skepticism that creeps up every once in a while, sometimes to a crippling degree.

Thankfully, there’s grace to explore that doubt. God doesn’t leave me when I doubt him for a minute or 60. And He won’t leave me when I die either.

It’s Very Possible I Will One Day Abandon Jesus.

I was in praise team practice at my church last night and we were practicing the song “Come Thou Fount,” a wonderful hymn that’s been pretty popular in recent years through modern interpretations. As it always seems to, one particular part of the song struck me:

Oh, to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be,
Let that grace now like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

It’s funny that we sang that song, because I was reflecting on a somewhat scary thought on the way to church. I had been listening to a podcast where a comedian who used to be a Christian was being interviewed and he was talking about why he had left Christianity (find the podcast and interview here). I was a little sad for the guy, but I began to think: what would make me leave Christianity?

To be honest: It’s very possible that I could abandon Jesus. It’s very possible that I could leave everything behind and just go and do my own thing.

There have been a few times in the last four or five years where I have reached points of despair in my walk with Christ for a number of reasons. A few of those reasons:

• Following Jesus is too hard.
• Following Jesus makes me feel guilty all the time.
• Following Jesus stresses me out.
• Following Jesus makes me depressed.
• Following Jesus is too much work.

I’m not asking you to comment below or on Facebook with the answers to these trying to fix me. I think there’s some of these thoughts that come from my own silly mind not remembering truth of Scripture, there’s some that come from Christian culture handling truth the wrong way, and there’s some that are entirely fair.

Sometimes following Jesus is too hard. To appropriately follow Christ, we’ve got to go against ourselves, we’ve got to go against just about everything our body and mind intrinsically want to do. It can be really tiring, especially for a new Christian. And there’s a point to where it’s going to be tiring, and that’s OK. Following Jesus is never promised to be easy.

But there are points in my walk with Jesus, as I’ve said, where it became “too much.” And it’s OK to reach that point! I don’t think that Jesus expected us to always have the energy and the motivation on our own strength to do everything. That’s why we have faith, that’s why we trust that God is working all things together for our good (Romans 8:28), that He’s for us and not against us (Romans 8:31), that He’s looking for ways to strongly support us (2 Chronicles 16:9) in the tough times.

But the danger comes when we reject those ideas and begin to think that we don’t need God because 1) we’ve got it on our own and/or 2) God clearly hasn’t done enough to help us so far. I think it’s perfectly natural and perfectly human to reach that place, to reach a point where we think, “What the heck has God done for me? I’m still in this mess, I’m still the way I used to be, I still feel lost. I need to try something else.”

When I reach those times, I have to go back to why I personally follow Jesus, why I personally need Jesus in my life.

A friend of mine is about to start her first year of teaching at an elementary school. She told me that a college professor of hers made her entire class spend 45 minutes writing out why they personally wanted to be teachers. That professor wanted them to have that for them to look back on when teaching became hard, when kids were misbehaving, when the grading was overwhelming. That professor was insightful, knowing there needed to be a personal motivation in a difficult, often under-appreciated profession.

I think we need the same thing in our walks with Jesus.

People can follow Christ for a number of different reasons, but I think it’s super helpful and almost necessary to have your own personal, individual reason and motivation to stick with Jesus through the hard times. You can say “because He’s God” or “because I’m supposed to,” but those things won’t hold in the depths of your despair. I learned that I needed a personal reason, something that was specific to my circumstances, something that showed how Christ spoke into the things I specifically deal with day after day.

A while ago on this blog, I wrote a post about how I struggle with anxiety on a daily basis and depression on a fairly regular basis. For the longest time while I was dealing with this, I would stick with Jesus because I thought I was “supposed to.” It was not helpful.

But then I began to see how God and His Word and the work of Christ dealt with my specific situation. I learned a few things:

• God loves me, even with my imperfections.
• God still loves me in my depression. He is with me in my depression. He doesn’t expect me to not feel depressed. You can be a Christian and be depressed. Mental illness isn’t a disqualification for anything in God’s eyes.
• The truth of God and His Word are rocks I can hold onto when my anxious mind tells me a million different lies.
• It’s OK to struggle. The Gospel truth of unconditional love and forgiveness for Christians means my sin doesn’t push God away from me.
• I don’t have to get fixed right away. Sanctification is a lifelong process.

It’s in thinking these thoughts and many others that I began to form my own “why” for following Jesus. This “why” is this:

I follow Jesus because He makes sense of my life when my depression leads me astray, when my mind can’t make itself up. He loves me in spite of my sin and accepts me in my wandering and wondering, my doubts and fears, my sadness and pain, my frustration and anger. He gives me truth in my mind of a million thoughts, a truth I can bank on again and again. Most importantly, He says, “I love you as you are. Come be with me.”

And, Lord-willing, that will keep me coming back to Jesus every single time. Because it speaks to me. It may not speak to everyone because not every deals with those things. But it’s for me, and it’s how Jesus relates to me.

And I love it.

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What is your personal “why” for following Jesus? If you would like to share, please comment below or e-mail me at zacharyhornereu@gmail.com. I would love to hear/read it. 

That One Time I Cursed at God for Allowing Me to Sin

I remember one night during my freshman year of college and I was confronted very closely with the sin in my life. It sucked. I was angry and frustrated.

I went to the school’s racquetball courts by myself and began to “practice.” It was really just me pounding the ball as hard as I could against the front wall. In my mind, I was screaming at God. Why? I asked. Why must I deal with this sin in my life? Why can’t I be perfect? Why must I deal with this? Why can’t I just get over this crap? I cursed at God. I did. I was ticked.

I look back on that night as one of the many in college when I was frustrated with God and His ways. College was a rough period for me spiritually. I dealt with a lot of doubt, a lot of fear and a lot of sin. Good gracious. I was a Christian the whole time, but I was overwhelmed spiritually in a lot of ways.

I was flipping through my Bible this morning and found Romans 11:33 underlined. Verse 33, along with 34 and 35:

Oh, the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgements and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’

In my journaling Bible, I have a note beside that set of verses: “How could I question God’s plan for my life or others’ lives? God doesn’t let anything happen to me that wasn’t part of the plan. Nothing surprises Him. I can question God, but I’m not near as smart as Him.”

I think it’s natural for humans to question God, natural for man to ask God why in the world certain things happen the way they do. It’s the cry of the non-believer in the face of a tragedy, the cry of a mother when her child dies prematurely, the cry of a wife when her husband is sent to jail for a long time. Why would God let this happen to me?

I ask God that about my sin. “God, why would you allow me to sin? Why would you allow sin in the world?” If you believe that God is in full control of the world, is all-powerful, I think you can’t escape the idea that God allowed sin to be a part of the world. He didn’t have to create a snake. I think God planned everything out from the beginning of the world, including the fall of man. Again, nothing takes Him by surprise.

I come back to these verses in Romans 11 praising the “judgements” and “ways” and “wisdom” of God. And I ask myself, “How in the world is it wise in God’s eyes to allow sin?” Wrong phrasing. It’s not “in the world” that it’s wise in God’s eyes. God’s ways are so unsearchable and unknowable that we have no business trying to understand it all the way. I think we can grow in that understanding as we mature in our faith, but there’s a sense where we won’t get it all.

So how do I deal with the fact that God allows me to sin? If I believe that all things work together for good, even my sin, I’ve got to accept that even the crappiest thing – my sin – is part of God’s plan for my life. I believe it’s ultimately to bring me back to understanding something.

He is the only way I will ever overcome sin or the grips of sin. I will not defeat sin on earth without God doing an incredible work in my life. It’s a miracle every time we defeat sin because we’re overcoming our natural inclinations. It’s also a miracle that we get to escape the eternal grip of sin on our lives and be held by a God who forgives us of that sin.

I think He allowed sin to be in my life to show me I’m insufficient. Since the fall, He’s allowed my sin to be in my life to kill the need for the self-sufficiency I struggle with on a daily basis and just trust Him, trust His Word and trust His plan.

His plan is perfect. There is nothing wrong with the plan God has put in place for us. Nothing happens outside His approval.

So next time I question God (which will probably be in the next hour or so), I need to come back to this point, the point that says His ways can’t be understood. But I know that they can be trusted fully, trusted without a doubt. That doesn’t mean the doubts won’t come, it just means I have an answer for them when they do.

He knows what He’s doing.

Let’s Ease Up on the Disciples, Huh? I Mean, You Are One Too.

Note: This is one of my pet peeves about Christianity. It might seem a little nit-picky. But I think it does reveal a lot about the human heart, especially my own, so I must write about it.

Some of the most disparaged characters in the New Testament are the disciples of Jesus. They are constantly mocked by pastors from the pulpit. They are seen as people who have everything they need right in front of them – Jesus – yet they miss the point! They don’t fully understand what they’re supposed to get.

So we say bad things about them that we would never say to their faces. We say we would do so much better. We say they should have known better.

But would we really?

Would we really stick with Jesus when He went to the cross? Would we really not slash a guard’s ear off? Would we really believe Jesus saying that He was going to die and then come back from the dead three days later? Would we really follow Him to the grave? Would we really? On what basis do we claim to have everything together and say the disciples don’t?

I think it’s evidence of our self-righteousness that we reprimand those in the past for not doing the things we would obviously have done in that situation. It’s perhaps the simplest and most obvious application of the adage “hindsight is 20/20.” Of course we would do the right thing.

I doubt it. I am a disciple of Jesus. I am just like them.

Sometimes I, like the disciples, question Jesus’ insistence on speaking with those with childlike faith and encouraging that kind of faith.

Sometimes I, like the disciples, flee when my Savior is questioned and doubted and harassed.

Sometimes I, like the disciples, deny that I know Jesus and that I have a relationship with Him.

Sometimes I, like the disciples, doubt the very words that Jesus speaks to me, that He loves me and that He died for me.

Sometimes I, like the disciples, say that I am the best Christian there is, the most faithful follower.

So let me make this plea: on behalf of the disciples, please cut them some slack and truly put yourself in their shoes. I must do the same.