You know that moment when you realize the universe might actually be bigger than your Sabbath School quarterly? Yeah, that one.
We Adventists love our beliefs — all 28 of them, conveniently numbered like spiritual vitamins. They give structure, certainty, and a sense that if we just memorize the list, we’re somehow bulletproof. But then life happens. The hospital waiting room happens. The heartbreak, the miracle that doesn’t come, the grace that shows up in the person you were taught to distrust — all of it refuses to fit neatly into Fundamental Belief #12.
And suddenly, God starts leaking out of the bullet points.
That’s not failure. That’s faith growing up.
It’s not that the 28 are wrong — they’re a good map. But the map isn’t the mountain. The doctrines describe what we’ve seen of God so far, not all there is to see. And sometimes, when your lived experience collides with divine mystery, the most faithful thing you can do is let your theology breathe.
Maybe the goal was never to fit God into our beliefs, but to let our beliefs expand to fit God.
Because if God really is who we say God is — eternal, infinite, love itself — then it’s okay if we don’t have all the boxes checked. It means we’re still discovering Him.
And that, my friend, is the most Adventist thing of all.
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