There are some lessons in life that one cannot venture to explain the nature of it for some time. It’s like a journey so deep into a forest, which is purposeful in itself, but there is no way to connect with those outside the forest and explain what it is like unless you are there outside or they are with you within. My nature is to explain what I am going through with people, in an attempt to understand better what I am going through (I’m a verbal processor) and also that they may share in it as well. I believe strongly in the power of community and the measure of accountability that can come from it, but that in itself I have been learning is not absolute.
There’s a lot I have been going through lately. A lot of the things in my life that were once so black and white became increasingly gray and I’ve been attempting to understand why. I’ve been trying to reason through many of these things, hoping that once it made at least some sense in my mind that things would fall into place. But what I have found is that is not really true. The mind is an amazing faculty and gift given to us by God, but I also see it as one of the easiest things for Satan to deceive. He wants us to try to wrap our minds around intangible things to make them tangible to us, to try to have an answer for those things that simply don’t have answers, and to get us so concerned with the aspect of understanding why we believe what we do with specific things that we get away from the whole point of faith. We are to walk by faith, not by sight. There’s a reason many things and aspects of God are called mysteries. There’s a reason why we don’t understand, and it is that we are finite while He is infinite. And in all our struggle to gain an infinite understanding of the reasons to have faith, whether conscious or unconscious, the process of attempting to do so proves our earthly wisdom to be more finite than ever.
We don’t live in a cookie-cutter world, though sometimes that looks appealing. Sometimes it would be nice to have set criteria for what we are to do and who we are to be. It would make things simpler. It would make the quest for the right answer an achievable task. But as tempting as that is sometimes, I do realize that it makes our lives about achieving the “right” answer, doing the “right” thing, being the “right” person, all judged by uniform criteria that realistically, cannot be applied to such a diverse world. It becomes about achievements and works rather than a journey of faith, a journey of learning and failing and learning again. It would make our character a “right” or “wrong” thing rather than one in which it needs to evolve and be refined over time. We would miss the point of our life being a journey of faith that evolves and ideally strengthens.
It’s hard to classify specifically what I’ve been wrestling with, but I think it has to do with understanding the difference between aspects of God’s sovereignty and aspects of choices on my part. The prime example I can think of a demonstration of God’s sovereignty is that He sent His son Jesus to die, a one-time act that bought the pardon of all and could not be changed, subtracted from or added to. Yet, there is a choice on the part of every human being to accept the pardon or to reject it. The act of God’s sovereignty never changes, but there is still a response and choice to be made to the sovereignty.
I can’t tell of how many examples there have been in my life of this condition in the last few months, and how many remain. I would say I am really similar to Job in that I know God, I know His truths (though I can always know more), but I have questioned His motives and ways in doing what He is doing. I have forgotten to rest in the fact that He is sovereign and who He is. It’s almost like I’ve had a cynical faith. I’ve also had this harsh dose of reality over the past couple of months in that the world is broken. It seems like the dreams that once seemed so realistically and easily dreamed when I was younger now seem too lofty, and that saddens me. It shows me where I’ve forgotten to hold onto faith and not to tangible realities.
John and I talked about Romans 8 the other night, and it spoke a lot of truth. What I took away from our conversation is that we cannot change that which is sovereign and those things that only God can do. Fighting against it proves useless. However, there are aspects of our character (mentioned in Colossians 3) that we are to take an active part in correcting, doing away with, and refining. That process helps us yield to God’s sovereignty, because we are actively seeking to be holy, seeking the higher way rather than the conditions of this world and our flesh. We are to “put on the new man” (Col 3:10), and that requires action on our part. We are called to obey His commands, and the act of doing so is an act of love on our part towards God.
I think we often forget that that very process, though usually difficult and uncomfortable, is for our benefit. It enables the freedom for things to come about that couldn’t easily before. We cannot receive unless our hands and hearts are open to do so and aren’t previously occupied. We cannot yield to God’s sovereignty if we don’t see the need to do so.
I’m sure I’m off on a tangent here, but I think our efforts need to be in understanding the big picture and abstract concept of what God requires of us instead of analyzing things to a concrete detail that we miss the point. Instead of trying to understand every single part of why God is doing a specific thing, we need to instead focus on the fact that God is doing a specific thing, and we can trust Him to be who He is in doing that very thing. We don’t ask the right questions, and we often ask too many.
I heard it said a while ago that there is a reason Jesus talked in parables instead of bullet points. It is that there is a general meaning and concept behind the message He gives, but to make everything a point-by-point map would diminish the need for faith. It would surely become about works instead. We have some very clear directions that we should take as just that: clear commands to respond to such as in Colossians 3, and concerning our salvation through Jesus alone, such as in Acts 4:11-12. We should not try to make those clear concepts ambiguous, but to respond to them accordingly. Yet at the same time, there are many things, such as the aspect of hope that we are called to, that is much more abstract. The general idea of it is consistent, and we are all called to it, but how it is applied varies. There’s not a clear-cut pattern as to how we are to do it, and we should not think it is such.
I cannot change or bring about what is sovereign, but I can yield myself to it.
The ironic thing about writing this is that in one aspect, I’m trying to explain the answer I’ve been receiving in the state I’ve been in as of late. However, the answer is that I am seeking out answers that I cannot reach or are not there. I’m asking too many questions. I need to yield myself to that which is sovereign and have faith, one that endures and bears the fruit of longsuffering. I also need to actively pursue doing the commands that have been specifically mentioned.
I’ve let too many things that were/are black and white become gray. I may not understand why such a thing is black or white, but it simply is what it is. I can’t muddle black and white together intentionally to make gray. If you’ve ever mixed paint, you will understand that black and white are pure colors, and once you start mixing them, they are forever tainted and you cannot get back to the pure white or black. It will just be varying shades of gray. Thankfully, our faith is not like that, and the muddled gray can be redeemed to its purity. Yet, I think it should be a strong example of the danger that can come in questioning the wrong things. It’s hard to recover.
I will leave it with this: God surely has used this process and overall it has been beneficial because it has shown me the extreme finite nature of my mind. Yet, I allowed Satan a foothold in asking questions I didn’t need to, and those need to be redeemed. I’m thankful that He does so. Here is a quote from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis that concludes it well. (The enemy is God, and it is spoken from Satan’s and the devil’s perspectives.)
“My dear Wormwood, I note what you say about guiding your patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïve? It sounds as if you supposed argument was the way to keep him out of the enemy’s (God’s) clutches. That might have been so if he lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved, they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But with the weekly press and other such weapons, we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together in his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false,’ but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical,’ ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary,’ ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless.’ Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the church.”
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