salt-shaker.blog

Life is a puzzle. Extravagant beauty and incredible tenderness splashed upon a backdrop of universal suffering and even intentional devastation. In the vulnerable moments when we feel that primal ache of discord deep in our soul, we realize that the resolution of this riddle is above our pay grade. History records mountains of contemplation, reflection, and conjecture recommending various answers. Some have found a satisfactory solution by embracing Jesus and trusting His ways. Back in the day when it was all new to me there was a saying: “Jesus is the answer – what is the question.” Clever, glib, and fundamentally true, this attitude discourages inquiry and minimizes issues we wrestle with as we live out our mortality in cracked earthen vessels.

Following Him is not a magic wand that erases all ambiguity in life. When asked a question Jesus’ answer was often seemingly unrelated. In fact, reading through the Gospels, you will notice that Jesus rarely answers a direct question. Most of the time, he responded by telling a story or by asking a question instead. The question-answer ratio is stunning, in fact. He only answered 3 questions out of 187, but he asked 307 of His own. What is He asking you right now? Jesus does not provide a neat, tidy doctrinal construct. He invites us to trust Him that reality is His to embed into our perception and practice. But we need to cooperate – seeking to find, knocking for answers, asking to receive. He does not reconcile all of the seeming inconsistencies of revelation, yet was eager to discuss His Father’s ways even as a twelve year old. As one who came from heaven and became human, isn’t His perspective about reality and goodness a weighty one?

So …… God allows evil and suffering to plague the pinnacle of His creative expression and yet He is good? Children and innocent bystanders are collateral damage in the wars of men and He does not retaliate? If He is love how can He punish sin that we are programmed to commit? Disease robs us of vitality and death robs us of dignity as He looks on? Is He helpless to stop it? He insists that the only obedient human who ever lived must be tortured and executed on behalf of the rest? These and other dark clouds of confusion, dissonance and culture-bias blow across the landscape of our idea of God. Sometimes they gather into a raging storm poised to thunder into suspicion and unbelief that can ruin us if not resisted. The thorns of living for now in a sin-broken world accompany the beautiful rose of hope of the kingdom yet to come.

Does Jesus really have the answers? Yes! Emphatically. But if we are so arrogant that we have to be able to understand before we will believe then we will certainly miss it. That is actually backwards. It is faith that opens the heart to understanding. Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God…” 1 Co 2:11-12 clarifies it more: “For who could really understand a man’s inmost thoughts except the spirit of the man himself? How much less could anyone understand the thoughts of God except the very Spirit of God? And the marvelous thing is this, that we now receive not the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God himself, so that we can actually understand something of God’s generosity towards us.” Our natural mind can grapple but will never resolve the contradictions of this world. Faith – not blind but reasoned – recognizes this inherent limitation and reaches for the hand that is offered to pull us out of the quicksand. That hand has the wound that we ourselves imprinted upon it. Take it or don’t. He dignifies us with choice whereas our doubts goad us into unwarranted resistance.

Spurgeon says it well when he says that “It is certain that a blind man is no judge of colours, a deaf man is no judge of sound, and a man who has never been quickened into spiritual life can have no judgment as to spiritual things.”

Consider this story: “One day, students in one of Albert Einstein’s classes were saying they had decided that there was no God. Einstein asked them, how much of all the knowledge in the world they had amongst themselves collectively, as a class. The students discussed it for a while and decided they had 5% of all human knowledge amongst themselves. Einstein thought that their estimate was a little generous, but he replied: “Is it possible that God exists in the 95% that you don’t know?”

I certainly don’t understand it all, but if I could, I think my god would be to small to be real.

Shalom!!