Trusting Him with the Unknown
Isaac and I recently had a conversation about having to trust God, even when
we don’t fully understand everything about His Word or His ways. Sometimes there
are gaps in our understanding of how God works and carries out His plan; often
these gaps leave us baffled. How can “A+B” equal “C” in God’s mind, when,
in our minds, there is no way that “A+B=C”? “C”, in our mind, equals
something that we parallel with unfairness and unjustness on God’s part. How can that be what the Bible teaches? Surely there’s
another answer that makes more sense.
And so we often do come up with another answer—one that fits the “A+B=C” equation in our mind. Yet, this answer is often based not so much on God’s Word as it is on what we want God’s Word to say.
Struggling with these doctrinal gaps in our understanding of how an infinitely good God could act in a way that seems infinitely wrong is hard, sometimes even gut-wrenching. Sometimes our emotions also get tied up in our struggle, which in turn make us come to conclusions based on our limited, human understanding instead of God’s objective Scripture…and that is where we get into trouble!
We cannot let our emotions and fuzzy feelings get in the way of seeing God for Who He is! Even if (or when) the conclusion of an honest look at Scripture leaves us with answers that are hard to swallow or may leave us hanging in the unknown, with no concrete answer.
But let me ask you a question: Is it better to linger in the unknown, while being confident about what we do know from God’s Word? Or would we prefer to manufacture an explanation that fills in the gap of our not knowing, yet have an “explanation” that is merely an explanation that gives us a "feel-good" emotion that we can hang on to? We can either have confidence in what the Word says or we can place our confidence in man’s explanation.
I dare say that trusting God with the gaps in our understanding is a much better place to be, albeit a difficult place to remain, day in and day out.
(Ok, that was the context for the next few paragraphs.)
The ladies' Sunday school class at church is just starting to work through Jen Wilkin's Women of the Word book on Bible study and loving God with our heart and our mind. In light of the conversation Isaac and I recently had, it was such a timely reminder, then, to have her emphasize over and over the need to first be seeing in the Scriptures Who God is instead of just how this applies to me.
It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to love a God that we don’t know. Yet how else are we going to truly know Him if not through the Bible? As we grow in our knowledge of Him, we will also grow in our love for Him. As we do grow, those gaps in our understanding that so often make our heart cry out “But I don’t understand how it can be this way, Lord” slowly become less prominent. In their place, we see God and His character, gloriously overshadowing any doubts and fears we may have due to our lack of understanding of the how or why.
Knowing God from His Word allows us to know the Who behind all the hows? and whys? that we don’t always understand. Isn’t that so much better than merely understanding the hows? and whys?
Growing to know God from what He has revealed about Himself in His Word gives us confidence in the certainty of His unfailing character. And despite our frailty, we can trust Him to always, always act in harmony with His character.
What more profound comfort can we ask for when our hearts are troubled over things we do not understand about God?
And so we often do come up with another answer—one that fits the “A+B=C” equation in our mind. Yet, this answer is often based not so much on God’s Word as it is on what we want God’s Word to say.
Struggling with these doctrinal gaps in our understanding of how an infinitely good God could act in a way that seems infinitely wrong is hard, sometimes even gut-wrenching. Sometimes our emotions also get tied up in our struggle, which in turn make us come to conclusions based on our limited, human understanding instead of God’s objective Scripture…and that is where we get into trouble!
We cannot let our emotions and fuzzy feelings get in the way of seeing God for Who He is! Even if (or when) the conclusion of an honest look at Scripture leaves us with answers that are hard to swallow or may leave us hanging in the unknown, with no concrete answer.
But let me ask you a question: Is it better to linger in the unknown, while being confident about what we do know from God’s Word? Or would we prefer to manufacture an explanation that fills in the gap of our not knowing, yet have an “explanation” that is merely an explanation that gives us a "feel-good" emotion that we can hang on to? We can either have confidence in what the Word says or we can place our confidence in man’s explanation.
I dare say that trusting God with the gaps in our understanding is a much better place to be, albeit a difficult place to remain, day in and day out.
(Ok, that was the context for the next few paragraphs.)
The ladies' Sunday school class at church is just starting to work through Jen Wilkin's Women of the Word book on Bible study and loving God with our heart and our mind. In light of the conversation Isaac and I recently had, it was such a timely reminder, then, to have her emphasize over and over the need to first be seeing in the Scriptures Who God is instead of just how this applies to me.
It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to love a God that we don’t know. Yet how else are we going to truly know Him if not through the Bible? As we grow in our knowledge of Him, we will also grow in our love for Him. As we do grow, those gaps in our understanding that so often make our heart cry out “But I don’t understand how it can be this way, Lord” slowly become less prominent. In their place, we see God and His character, gloriously overshadowing any doubts and fears we may have due to our lack of understanding of the how or why.
Knowing God from His Word allows us to know the Who behind all the hows? and whys? that we don’t always understand. Isn’t that so much better than merely understanding the hows? and whys?
Growing to know God from what He has revealed about Himself in His Word gives us confidence in the certainty of His unfailing character. And despite our frailty, we can trust Him to always, always act in harmony with His character.
What more profound comfort can we ask for when our hearts are troubled over things we do not understand about God?
Comments
Post a Comment