Having a Heart in a Sometimes Heartless World
Scripture focus: Let the wicked abandon their way of life and the evil their way of thinking. Let them come back to God, who is merciful, come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness. “I don’t think the way you think. The way you work isn’t the way I work.” God’s Decree. “For as the sky soars high above earth, so the way I work surpasses the way you work, and the way I think is beyond the way you think.” Isaiah 55:7-8 The Message
Mom’s taking a break this week, and Scott is bringing us a devotional thought from sunny (and smoky) California. It’s amazing how much closer attention a mother pays to wild fires when her son lives at the edge of one...
I didn’t need to move to California to learn what I didn’t know about God – but it certainly helped! It’s true – I’ve been frustrated by my futile attempts to find a job (see yesterday’s devotional) where I can be underpaid and under-appreciated – which would be totally fine with me. I am eager to work for food! But with all this time for self-reflection, I realize that there was something larger going on than merely my frustration over not having a job.
There comes a time in everyone’s spiritual journey when you realize you have already learned everything you are going to know about God, and it comes well before you want it to. This is a disconcerting insight for a guy who is studying systematic theology, New Testament, and a bunch of other courses that I assumed would make me smarter in the ways of the Lord. Broadly, this already-obtained but insufficient knowledge of God applies to why he does certain things, why he doesn’t intervene in certain areas, but also to my life. When I was growing up in church everyone talked about God’s plan for my life. I foolishly assumed that at some point I would know what it was. When reflecting on my job situation I realized that there are things that I am just not going to know, and I had to learn to be okay with that. This realization has me rethinking my second step (“Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity”).
As Christians there is just as much to be learned from what we don’t know about God then from what we do.
In the Christ-centered twelve steps (check out www.northstarcommunity.com for more information about these steps if the terminology is unfamiliar), the first two steps are all about acknowledging what I don’t know and that I am going to work on being okay with that. Granted, this is not as simple as flipping the “I want to know” switch in your brain to “off.”
In the book Healing Addiction, the authors state that the first step of recovery is to “come to appreciate which components of recovery require personal growth beyond the scope of medical understanding”. This aspect of recovery is commonly referred to as spirituality, but, in essence, it represents a level of comfort with the uncertainties of life over which none of us has much control.” Becoming comfortable with not knowing what the future holds is the backbone to understanding how to apply the first two steps to my daily life. There are going to be spiritual questions I won’t find answers to, and that is okay. Why is that okay? More on this ability to be okay with the unknown in tomorrow’s devotional.
1 comment:
This is a really old song that I remember my dad loved. I thought about it when I read the devotion.
I Know who Holds Tomorrow
I don't know about tomorrow
I just live from day to day
I don't borrow from it's sunshine
For its skies may turn to grey
I don't worry o'er the future, For I know what Jesus said
And today I'll walk beside Him,
for I know He knows what is ahead.
Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow And I know who holds my hand
Every step is getting brighter
As the golden stairs I climb
Every burden's getting lighter,
Every cloud is silver-lined.
There the sun is always shining,
There no tear will dim the eye
At the ending of the rainbow
Where the mountains touch the sky
I don't know about tomorrow
It may bring me poverty
but the one who feeds the sparrow
Is the one who stands by me
And the path that is my portion
May be through the flame or flood
But His presence goes before me
And I'm covered with His blood
When I listen to Allison Krauss sing this song it makes me cry. Such a sweet tough song, obviously some of it is about the conditions that exist only in heaven and yet it challenges me to think about why I worry rather than turn my angst into prayers. It's a state of living with one foot in the seen world and another in the unseen...I think we are lucky if all that we believe gets jostled by God, even though we don't go around looking for an upset (I'm not eager for that part about the "flame and flood or poverty"). I admit I'm often baffled at the circumstances of our lives and why things often turn out differently than we understand I am enjoying what you're writing, Scott.
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