Procrastination by Questions

Wednesday, June 6
John 3:11-12 (The Message)
"Listen carefully.  I'm speaking sober truth to you.  I speak only of what I know by experience; I give witness only to what I have seen with my own eyes.  There is nothing secondhand here, no hearsay.  Yet instead of facing the evidence and accepting it, you procrastinate with questions.  If I tell you things which are plain as the hand before your face and you don't believe me, what use is there in telling you of things you can't see...the things of God?"
    I sense frustration mounting here!  Nicodemus is earnest and intent on trying to understand what Jesus is saying.  Jesus has been trying to make the concepts of heaven as simple as possible, in earthly, understandable terms.  "What don't you understand??  If you can't figure this simple explanation out, you'll never comprehend God!"
     Eugene Peterson's translation, "procrastinate with questions' takes me back to the classroom again.   I can relate to Jesus.  "Just WHAT don't you understand?  You're not listening to me!"  I can see science teacher Jesus, who has laid out the experiment, demonstrated the concepts, provided the evidence, and yet....there are still questions.  The students, for whatever reason (maybe Nicodemus was truly a middle schooler at heart!), start asking the same question, with variations, over and over to delay the teaching.
     We are hesitant to jump from the plane or step out of the boat on faith alone.  So we question...over and over.  Prove it, give me evidence.
     God has given us a world of creation evidence, a Son of proof, a Spirit of confirmation.  Let's stop procrastinating with questioning God and start putting our words and faith into action.