Opinion
Is your thinking and your faith on the level?
Jane Walters has been baking cakes, but they turned out a little lop-sided!
I’ve had (another) busy week. It’s something of a specialism of mine, as you’d know if you’ve read these blogs for long enough. As part of my preparation for an event, I was doing a lot of baking. It was great fun, actually, since I got to use a brilliant new gadget I’d had for Christmas. But it was when I was on the fourth (and last) cake of the afternoon that I realised something rather annoying: I hadn’t put the oven shelf in carefully enough, and all my cakes had come out on the wonk.
It was such a fundamental error. Regarding cake, it’s no big deal – I can just ice them and disguise the unevenness. But what if our thinking is on the wonk? What if our beliefs are? We’re then looking at something far more serious.
My friend once shared a flat. All of them were Christians. All got on famously together. Then one of them started watching shows on a religious TV channel. It wasn’t too long before her conversations were different. Some of her opinions started to sound flaky. In short, within months of watching this diet of what the apostle Paul would have called out as heresy, this girl’s ‘Christian faith’ was decidedly on the wonk.
We are surrounded by differing opinions and values wherever we go. We just need to listen to the chatter around us as we line up to pay for our shopping to realise that not everyone thinks the same way we do. But it’s not just that that can cause the ‘wonk’. Sometimes we think we know what the Bible says but our memories can play tricks.
At our home group Christmas social, we joined in a quiz, with all the questions based on the Christmas story. Some of the questions were the typical ‘chestnuts’: how many wise men were there? We all chimed in: ‘just because there were three gifts doesn’t mean there were three people.’ We were feeling smug - for a short while. As the questions rolled on and our wrong answers mounted up, there was consternation, confusion and controversy. What it amounted to was this: the Bible is really clear about the facts, but we had allowed a diet of nativity stories (some of which we’ve acted in!) to influence what we thought we knew.
Let’s not be Christians who live ‘on the wonk’ (or even ‘on the huh’) but have our faith and out-flowing lifestyle rooted on the word of God, following securely in the footsteps of Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. No metaphorical limping required.
The photo is courtesy of Jane Walters.
Jane Walters is Chair of the Association of Christian Writers and loves to champion writers of all ages and stages. She leads Green Pastures Christian Writers (currently meeting on Zoom) and creative writing retreats at Quiet Waters. Find out more: www.janewyattwalters.com or @readywritersretreats on Instagram.
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