Help with figuring things out

I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding (Jeremiah 3:15).

Sometimes things are hard to figure out or understand.  You might be playing home mechanic on your car or truck and run into a problem you can’t diagnose, or a part you don’t recognize.  You might be assigned a book to read and report on, but the themes are deep or the plot is complex and you struggle with figuring out what it all means.  Or you might enjoy video games, but there is a puzzle you can’t figure out or a hidden object that you just can’t find.  In each of these cases, you hit a brick wall that frustrates you.

Thankfully, the world is filled with guidebooks.  Auto-part stores have materials on every type of system and component that you’ll encounter under the hood.  Many’s the student who has relied on Cliffs Notes to help them make sense of Tolstoy and Shakespeare.  Almost every video game has a guidebook available to help aggravated gamers find the solutions they need when stuck.  There’s a whole series of books For Dummies on topics ranging from knitting to gardening to doing your taxes.

But what about your spiritual life?  Thinking about stuff like eternity and the meaning of life can make your head spin.  Maybe you’ve opened a holy book to scan a page or two and were left confused by what you read. If only there was an easy to use guidebook that explained this stuff in every day language.  Where’s the Dummies’ Guide to God?

This is why church services include sermons.  All sorts of people attend worship—children and the elderly, dropouts and college graduates, people who wonder about the past and the future as well as those who are content to just live in the moment.  Each of them is at a different place in their spiritual journey; each of them is trying to figure out the word of God and how it impacts their lives.  The task of the minister is to help everyone gathered in that place to understand God’s message to them.  If you are struggling with your spirituality, if you’ve tried reading the Bible and can’t make heads or tails of it, then the Church established by Jesus Christ offers the understanding that you seek.  It helps you to see the difference between right and wrong, truth and falsehood; it helps you to understand your purpose on earth and what awaits you after death.  Most importantly, it shows you the love of God that forgives each and every one of your mistakes.  I invite you to worship with other Christians and find the answers that you’ve been seeking.