Are you in over your head? Children usually wade before they learn to swim, and the same imagery applies to the development of your faith. It is comforting to be able to touch the bottom, but this is only wading. This severely limits the places you can go in the water, keeping you close to shore. But there is risk and uncertainty and a loss of control in being in over your head. If you have been in deeper water you know that the water will support you even though it is not solid. In a spiritual parallel, do you know that the divine mystery will support you if you are in over your head?

When someone complains about a problem, do you evaluate the situation to determine if they did anything to contribute to it by their own actions? Does this make it easy to dismiss their suffering by saying it is their own fault? Do you see how harsh and judgmental this is? Self-inflicted wounds are still painful. Who could be excluded from such a calculation? Who has perfect self-control and perfect comprehension of the consequences of their actions? How many lead such perfect lives that they don’t need grace and mercy? Would this include you?

Are you in over your head in your faith? It is easy to think that you have answers to all the questions if you have attended the same church for a long time, but your circle may not be large enough. Certainty is reassuring, but can you eliminate mystery from faith? Would you want to? If you are in control of all aspects of your faith is it faith in you or faith in me? I appeared to my people and they got more God than they bargained for. But you have come to the New Jerusalem, to the city of the living God, and your God is a consuming fire. It is okay to be in over your head.

Do you like to have money? It seems that everyone wants more, but money is only valuable in the way that it is spent. You are familiar with the proverb that a fool and his money are soon parted, and you have seen people spend money on things that you think are foolish. What about your liberty? This is more equally distributed than money is. Is it possible to spend your freedom foolishly? If you think that all expenditures of freedom are equal, consider that those who seek to save their lives will lose them, and those who lay down their lives for the Kingdom of God will save them.