Theologizin' Bigger into Year 25

Day 1: Draw 4

A great deal of our spiritual formation is attributable to circumstances beyond our control.

Trey Ferguson, Theologizin’ Bigger, pg. 85

I’m turning 25 on Friday, July 12th. So, technically I’ll be in my 26th year, but that’s just annoying and confusing. Plus, I couldn’t find a more concise way to title this series, so just go with me.

Until Friday, I will share daily reflections that give my best shot at theologizin’: bringing the wholeness of who I am into the exercise of thinking about God’s nature and activity in our world and beyond.

This series, for the privy, is an obvious nod to my big bro

Trey Ferguson

’s book Theologizin’ Bigger: Living Freely and Loving Wholly. Calling it life-changing would be short-changing its true effect on me.

My reason for topping off my last days as a 24-year-old with such a weird writing project is that no matter how much I try not to think about my existence and experiences with any relation to God, I can’t help but do so.

So, let’s begin...

The moments I thought it was my turn to play my final card on this theologizin’ stuff, I got hit with draw 4 cards. Surprisingly, the unwelcome cards from the deck helped set me up a new strategy for keeping the game alive. The seeds of anger, overwhelm, and doubt that came from not winning and collecting so many new cards (grief, loss, new friendships, work, etc.) morphed into an acceptance that has grown into the plant of a more spacious hermeneutic. At the risk of getting flamed by all serious participants, I’m gonna say something no UNO card player has ever said: I hope I always get hit with draw 4s in this regard.

Unlike UNO, theologizin’ is never a game we have to end. It’s a practice and way of life that evolves as we encounter God, others, and ourselves more clearly. We learn to welcome the confusion and frustration that comes by way of no longer having answers that shut questions down. Life throws hands at all of us that we determine are impossible to handle. Theologizin’ doesn’t stop in these moments. It persists even into our very rejections of the pet ideas we’ve believed true up to this point. Thankfully, allowing our experiences and environments to share a meaningful role in our understanding of God denies any person or institution the right to limit our attempts of faithfully following and loving God, a central goal of theologizin’.

As theologizin’ is never a game we have to end, its also never a game we have to master. Luck constitutes most of UNO, but strategy and deception are crucial to shutting it all down. In theologizin’ the only strategy necessary is truthfulness about who and where you are. Some try to make the field of theology an exact science that lays out everything in binary ways. This ostensibly unbiased position essentially suggests very little mystery exists concerning God (outside of God’s transcendence and incommunicable attributes) once we acquire enough biblical and hermeneutical skills to protest any war against certainty. Theologizin’ is interdisciplinary and interpersonal. It finds no embarrassment in receiving from and contributing to the worlds of those outside our cul-de-sacs. In our engagement with others who think and feel about God like us but in ways novel to us, we may find ourselves uncomfortable. But, the more we press in, I imagine we’ll find ourselves more humble, more spacious, more curious, more open to God’s heart and voice. We ain’t gotta master nothing, only listen.

So draw 4 and see what beauty comes out of the seeming chaos.

Luh y’all big time,

Ru :)