Finding Answers

I remember being in kindergarten and thinking that my teacher knew everything there was to know. Of course she knew everything; why else would she be a teacher. No matter what I asked, she would know the answer. The same went for my mom and dad. If I skinned a knee, they knew how to heal it, and when I wanted to learn how to ride my bike, of course they had the answer. My kindergarten teacher knew my aunt, but that made sense, she knew everything as well. I remember being that age. Everything was safe, and everybody around me could make me feel that way.
I skip forward in my life now about 27 years, and I realize that I am now about the age that my mother was when I was five. I'm probably now older then my kindergarten teacher was in 1980 or so when I first started school. I know I'm older then my aunt was. I also know that they probably didn't have all the answers to life like I thought they did; I certainly don't.
As I grew up, I began to realize slowly that some of the adults in my life maybe didn't know everything, but that was ok. At the time, I probably thought that I knew all the answers anyway. Moving into college and my early adult years most of these naive thoughts went away, but there was still a few people who I think deep down I felt like had all the answers. After all, my pastors had God on their side; of course they would be able to help me in anything that I went through. They helped lead me through my high school youth group experiences. They helped lead me, as I attempted to be a leader for the youth of the church. I went and sat in the office of my associate pastor as I went through premarital counseling. I remember making a desperate phone call one evening to her voice mail as I struggled to try and save a doomed marriage. Getting voice mail crushed me because I knew if she would have answered everything would have been ok.
I think a lot of people think this about their pastors, but as I progress through seminary, this notion is shattered as well, as I begin to realize that we all are a broken people searching for truth. I look around me and I see friends and colleagues who face the same demons that I do. I see people who struggle with relationship questions, image concerns, depression, addictions, family problems, time management concerns, and identity crisis’s. I see people who struggle with the very same issues that I struggle with myself. When I decided to follow the call I felt in my life, I worried that I would arrive on a campus of people who knew everything. I imagined being the lost black sheep on campus, and being laughed out of school.
While I know this is not true now, I still sometimes worry that I am not cut out to be a pastor. I'm not cut out to be the person that a broken and wounded person can lean on, because I am broken and wounded myself. Today was a reminder of this as I had a conversation with somebody dealing with problems from a family strained to the extreme by life. I saw my unworthiness as I entered a discussion with a friend struggling to find theological answers to a life's dilemma. I felt very inadequate as I listened to somebody I consider a close friend admit to some serious demons they are facing in life. I felt exposed as I shared some of my own to the same person.
My solace today is the thoughts gained by my reading of Eugene Peterson, who reminds me that as a future pastor, I don't need to have all the answers....Jesus already does. My job is to pray, and to help those around me pray. My job is not to heal those around me, but to point them to the true healer, our lord and savior. These thoughts and ideas sometimes seem overused and rather blah, but in times of extreme hurt and pain, they can shine through. I remember a time when prayer was maybe all that got me through. It wasn't a pastor, or a teacher, or even my mother who I cried to, but to Jesus. I still don't always feel adequate to be the one who people come to for the answers. The human in me wants to have them all, but my prayer for today is that I will be able to help direct people to the answers. Not the answers that I give them, but the answers that are given to them through the Holy Spirit.

Weak and wounded sinner
Lost and left to die
O, raise your head, for love is passing by
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus
Come to Jesus and live!

Now your burden's lifted
And carried far away
And precious blood has washed away the stain, so
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus
Sing to Jesus and live!

And like a newborn baby
Don't be afraid to crawl
And remember when you walk Sometimes we fall...so
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus
Fall on Jesus and live!

Sometimes the way is lonely
And steep and filled with pain
So if your sky is dark and pours the rain, then
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
Cry to Jesus and live!

O, and when the love spills over
And music fills the night
And when you can't contain your joy inside, then
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus
Dance for Jesus and live!

And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!

- Chris Rice - Untitled Hymn (Come To Jesus)