I was approaching my fiftieth birthday when two godly women ever so gently challenged what I had been taught about women, the church and God.¹

For decades, the teachings of my church culture had jarred my spirit. Then, at 43, I began serving fulltime as a state women’s leader in my denomination. There, I came face to face with the demeaning and dishonest treatment of women that these “scriptural” tenets produce.

Yet still, I was afraid to probe the subject. The accepted stance is counted so clearly biblical and so foundational to the faith that honest questions are seen as a slippery slope to liberalism, heresy and hell.

I was frightened at the thought of being counted a liberal or a heretic. So even after Laura and Pam helped me see that the jarring in my spirit was coming from God himself, I tried for two more years to treat the matter as too peripheral and too controversial to approach.

I just could not bring myself to go there – until my world lay shattered, and my life hinged on what I found …

You pursue truth differently when you know your life depends on it

If a topic interests you, you may search the web. You may search the Scriptures. You may take a class or read a book. You may arrange your findings logically. You may use what you’ve learned to inform or persuade others. You may even try to make some changes yourself.

Ah, but if you suddenly realize how much the answers matter, to questions you have not asked, you seek from a different place. You seek with a different intensity. A profound purpose propels you, and a burning desire to know.

You pursue truth differently when your world has been upended

When life is rocking along as usual, you may find some things bothersome, jarring, even distressing. At times, the distress may send you into search mode.

And then, as soon as life resumes a bit more normalcy – even a decidedly unhealthy normalcy – you’ll likely abandon the search. It may get buried in busyness. It may get shot down by fear of what you might find.

Ah, but if your world has just been blown to smithereens, you suddenly have stunning incentive to look with different eyes – especially if the events that left you shattered resulted from your taking a path you’ve thought correct or felt you had to take.

You pursue truth differently in desperation – but your soul can still short-circuit the search

When your life hangs in the balance, you may begin to see the truth, yet find it so painful that you turn from it and grasp for straws.

When your world has exploded, you may want the truth, yet resist it out of anger or shame. You may let bitterness or resentment poison your perceptions. You may get mired in ungrieved grief. You may even yet be paralyzed by fear.

Yes, in times of desperation, you can miss the truth because one or more of your emotions runs amuck. But also, you can miss what desperation might teach you because your mind takes charge, looks down its nose at “emotionalism” and tells desperation to hush.

The mindset that “logic can be trusted, emotions cannot” will urge you to stay detached. It will assure you that a rational approach to truth-seeking works far better than any search prompted by the deep longings of your heart.

Truth is: Logic grasps for straws as often as emotion does, perhaps not as dramatically, but often much more doggedly. Logic finds the answer it wants to see as often as emotion does, though it often conceals the self-deception behind a beguiling air of credibility.

Logical arguments seem far more reliable than emotional outbursts, but both can lead you in the wrong direction, and often do. In fact, misguided emotions typically spring from – or react to – misguided thoughts. Further, the pride that often accompanies logic can keep you blinded to the truth long after you should be able to see.

Sadly, it may take out-and-out trauma to shake you loose from logic’s grip long enough to recognize that what you’ve clung to so stubbornly may not be truth after all. In such seasons, emotion serves the wonderful function of warning you that reason doesn’t have it all figured out.

Ah, but emotions can’t consistently guide you the right way, either.

For that, you need a radical shift.

You pursue truth differently when you pursue it by the Spirit

I’ve learned the hard way:

• Desperation can get you moving, where, before, you were stuck.
• Desperation won’t necessarily send you the right direction.
• But it may.

For in desperation, you may finally break free from soulish self-effort. In brokenness, you may gain humility to yield to the Spirit of God.

I’m in trouble. I cry to God, desperate for an answer. (Ps. 120:1 MSG)

Desperate, I throw myself on you: you are my God! (Ps. 31:14 MSG)

When that release occurs, your human spirit begins to rise up, quickened by, taught of and filled with the Spirit of God. As your reeling soul relinquishes the lead to your Spirit-led spirit, your mind and emotions quit fighting over who’s in charge.

You pursue truth with great fervor, and with great integrity. You refuse to let either your mind or your emotions conjure up answers that can come only from God. You seek understanding as you would search for hidden treasure, yet you do not force the conclusions you may want.

When God doesn’t give insight immediately, you continue to seek and to wait expectantly in hope.

You pursue with greater discernment, yet with a new capacity to embrace mystery. More and more, you learn to recognize the voice of the Spirit. More and more, you see that you can’t grasp even the “simplest” Bible verse mind first.

You begin to see how much you don’t know. You begin to see how far you still have to go. But you also recognize:

He who lives in you loves you, and he is committed to guiding every step of the way.

You begin to see how much the precious and the worthless have gotten entangled in your mind and heart. Slowly, over time, the Spirit of Christ shows you what, that you have believed, is truly from God and what is not.

You experience those stunning ah-ha! moments, and those deliciously slow unfoldings, when the Spirit reveals God’s word – and when he shows you God’s heart.

When the Word and the Spirit seem to contradict each other, you don’t reject the Word. But also, you don’t assume, “That’s not the Spirit.” You wait before God, asking him to reveal where the source of the seeming contradiction lies.

“Heavenly Father, have I misunderstood the Scripture? Holy Spirit, have I misheard you, or taken the truth you’ve said and added to it? Lord Jesus, is this a kingdom paradox?”

In the paradoxes of God, what seems to conflict actually correlates. For truth is complex, and each paradox contrasts two aspects of it – such as God’s sovereignty and human will, or judgment and mercy, or holiness and love.

In the paradoxes of God, men and women are different, and both are needed to reflect the image of God. Yet also, in God’s kingdom, “there is … neither male nor female” (Gal. 3:28). Together, we’re the Bride, and all of us are sons. Hmm.

Until God reveals, you rest in mystery. Deuteronomy 29:29 says,

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.

What a comfort! You don’t have to know it all. You cannot know it all. You can trust the Lord with the things still hidden from you. You can trust him to reveal what you need to know as you wait with your spiritual ears open to hear.

As you wait and search, you learn to recognize the stark difference between insisting in your soul that a thing must be true – and recognizing from your spirit that it is.

As God uncovers what you have not seen, you rest in the recognition that your spirit may grasp something long before your mind and emotions can catch up. You don’t fret when you can’t yet verbalize, or substantiate, what you’re sensing deep within. You learn not to make the mistake of trying to “figure out” how to fill in the blanks.

You pursue with greater courage. You move toward what you fear, not away from it.

You reject the intimidation and accusation that hiss, “How dare you ask such questions!” You know God welcomes honest questions, even when they’re asked in confusion, anger or pain.

You pursue truth differently when your world has been shaken, when your life hinges on what you find – and when your spirit is released to resonate with the Spirit of God.

Ah, then, you’re poised to find.

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In loving memory of my dear friend
Pam Rosewell Moore
1943-2023

Pam is one of the “two godly women” I mention in the first sentence of this post – and in the first sentence of What About Women? A Spirit-to-spirit Exposé, the book from which the post is taken.

Even though I hesitated when Pam first “challenged what I had been taught about women, the church and God,” her gentle words and Christlike life ultimately opened my heart to all that I’ve learned since.

I miss you, Pam. I loved getting to know you, talking deeply with you, reading your books and seeing your so-very-lovely heart. I loved visiting in your home and welcoming you into mine. I loved that we could be to each other a port during a storm.

I loved walking with you and praying with you. And how can I ever forget the day I danced in your living room with you and your husband Carey and your two delightful dogs?

Thank you for encouraging me to seek the truth. Thank you for standing with me when I did.

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The original title for this post was, “When you know your life depends on it.”

Stormy sea image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay

See also

• Waylaid by God
• The blessing of mourning
• Dear traumatized one, I pray you float
• Can we talk about shame?
• Humble your soul, release your spirit
• Living by the Spirit
• The truth will set you free

Footnotes

1. See the dedication at the end of this post, and also the post, This girl is a woman now. ↩︎