It's a tough one

The Tough Questions

 

 

So there is this boy, No not like that. He is 14 and in 8^th grade. I have known him since he was in 4^th grade. I have watched him grow from a little boy to a sweet and caring teenager, and now he is making the scary transition in to being a young man. So with that comes this discovery, via trial and error, of who he is and what God’s plan for him is. So tonight when we were working on our scene for the play we are in he asks me a question that floors me. “if you “ ( Paraphrase) “ could choose between living on an island free of responsibility and hard choices, or returning to your life as it is now, what would you choose?” for me it only took a few minutes to make a choice, I would leave the island and return to normal life. I told him that I love my life and my friends and I wouldn’t leave them. Then he looked sad, “but I would stay.” He said, “And I don’t know what kind of person I am, what person would leave his friends and family for a life of ease and be ok with it?” When I got home and thought about what he said, it hit me! I know who I am, who God created me to be, because I am older. I have found myself in the hard choices and in the sudden responsibility for growing up. But my friend has barely begun to discover who he is, and what a scary thing to be thinking about something so deep without firmly knowing who you are as person yet! Question like the one posed by my young friend, are difficult for people of all ages to wrestle with. They can sometimes, when we are honest with our self, shake us to the core. If we are not founded in the one thing that has stood the test of time and tough questions, Jesus Christ. He was asked many difficult questions, “is it right to pay taxes to creaser?” “Are you the messiah who is to come?” These questions were meant to trip up and in tangle him. But to their shock and amazement he, so grounded in his heavenly father never faltered. but he also asked tough questions that shocked and shook the people around him such as, “Why were you so afraid?” “Are you not worth more than many sparrows?” “Do people light a lamp and then set it under a bowl?” Today these questions have been thrown around in churches so often the answers seem simple but back in the day they were revolutionary, crazy, thought that confused and frightened all around him. Jesus knew better than ANYONE there is no quicker way to get to the heart of a person then to ask a few tough questions. And that is exactly what he did he asked the tough stuff and never backed off and pushed for an answer. It often made people angry and spiteful but it was because his words cut people to the heart. My friend cut me to the heart with his question, it made me think of this verse:

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect

1 Peter 3:15

 I pray that I will always be able to answer the most important question that anyone could ever ask me, what is the reason for the hope that you have? That should be the tough question that EVERYONE should have an answer for.