Leaning on my own understanding

Well you were reading between the lines, weren't you, Lord?

I suppose that's not strictly accurate, is it, as you are the One from whom no secrets are hidden... so I can never be oblique with you. Yesterday I said that I wasn't going to ask why my life continues to be strewn with large boulders to climb over, but you know me better than that. You know me so well that you understand the subtext for all those times when I answer 'How are you?' with a grumpy, 'Fine'. You know me so well that you know the agenda when I scowl and say 'Alright then'. 

You made me. 

So yesterday I don't ask 'Why?' and today you explain to me.

My daily devotional email today was on the text:

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.'
Proverbs 3:5-6

Rick Warren, he of 'The Purpose Driven Life' said this:

'...understanding is not a requirement for you to start down the path (that God sets before you).'

So it's not surprising that I don't know where I am, let alone where I'm going. Your timing is just perfect, isn't it? I needed to hear these very words today. 

'The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining brighter till the full light of day.'
Proverbs 4:18

Maybe one day I'll see the full picture. Maybe one day I'll see the other side of the tapestry and not just the messy ends of the threads. Maybe one day I'll understand why the pattern on my carpet is one of anxiety and confusion at the moment.

I'm waiting for my 'gleam of dawn'. Like the first time I notice that the days are getting longer in Spring and it feels as if a long, long, winter is finally receding. Like being exhausted and lonely in the night when you're awake for hours with a newborn baby and suddenly you notice that it's dawn and morning is coming. It's the spark of hope.

Rick tells me to be patient. I need to have patience. You know what you're doing. I know you know what you're doing. It just frustrates me sometimes that I don't know what you're doing. I know that you want what's best for me, and I know that you want what's best for my family too, and family at Church as well as we struggle to grow and plan for the future.

I know that you have a Plan. I know that you are Almighty God and you can see the end from the beginning where I can only look backwards and see how far I've come - the path in front only seems to appear after I've taken a scary step into nothing.

I'm trying to trust you. I'm trying, honestly. It's just that those steps take it out of me. I find myself groping in the darkness and reaching for a handrail; sometimes I find that I grab hold of your hand and sometimes I can't feel it there. Sometimes my steps feel safe and sometimes it's as if the ground crumbles under me.  I believe that you'll catch me when I fall. I do.

'...all the things that make you ask 'why?' - one day all will be clear in the light of God's love.'

says Rick. So because I'm the sort of person who likes to have things sewn up - I am thinking that sometime there'll come a day when I'll understand. All will become clear. I just have to learn to live without that clarity now.

I need to live with the murk. To put one foot in front of the other not knowing what I might tread in, so to speak.  For you're there too.

I'm finding it hard, Lord. Even when I don't ask why I'm wondering why. I'm also wondering what, whether, how much, for how long, and when will it end. When things are going my way I don't wonder those things half so much, do I?

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.'Proverbs 3:5-6

Well, leaning on my understanding is like leaning on an open door. I fall over. Or I spin around grabbing for things and finding nothing to hold onto and I'm all off balance so I make a big fuss.

Submit? Sigh. Do I have an alternative?

Thought not. 

Tell you what, I'll do my best to submit, and you come across with the straight path. Does that work for you? 

You said so, so I guess it does.

It's a deal.

I trust you.

(Edited and reposted from June 2011. The more things change, the more they stay the same, hey?)

I'm wondering why

Well, God, there's a message there I think.


I think that I had a bad week.  


I'm watching the TV and seeing the pictures from Japan - first they have an earthquake and then a tsunami that devastates anything that was left standing after the earthquake.  I can't imagine the terror of it.  Even for a country that is well accustomed to earthquakes and is considered to be incredibly well prepared, it must have been terrifying.

I'm trying to imagine how it must be to live through an earthquake of that magnitude, and just as you're getting up off the floor, scared stiff, and starting to look around at the mess caused by bottles falling off the wine rack, books off the shelves and plates out of the cupboard, it dawns on you that in a while (hours, minutes?) a breathtakingly enormous wave is going to crash into your house, wipe flat your livelihood and carry along in it's devastating path everything in it's way. 

Why?  


I know that scholars and theologians and atheists alike have debated this point until there's little left to say.  Why do you allow things like this to happen, Lord God?    You love the people of Japan just as much as you love the English, the Americans, the Africans, the Maoris, the Chinese... so this 'natural disaster' comes along and kills, injures, ruins and terrifies - for what?  Is it just their turn?  


I'm afraid that I don't understand. I'm not on my own.

I do understand that you can bring good out of even the bleakest situation, and this looks pretty bleak, so I hope you can do your thing pretty soon.  The problem I have is that it seems to sound a little weak if you're talking to someone who has lost their family, their home, their livelihood and their health; and now a nuclear power plant has exploded just to add another dimension of awfulness to a pretty desperate situation; 'Oh well, something good will come of it'.


But I know that you can bring good out of any situation.  I'm sure that people from many many countries are on their way to Japan to help, bring aid in many forms, and carry out amazing acts of heroism in the days and weeks ahead.  


Will your Name be praised in these situations?  Will people bring glory to you in the ruins of these people's lives?

I understand that you did not cause this disaster.  It's not possible that you did.  I know that you are all things good, peaceful, beautiful, constructive, hopeful; to devastate and destroy is not in your nature. You do not cause harm to those you love.  But you did with Job, didn't you?  Here lies a discussion about the Old Testament and how you are the same God who did indeed destroy, punish, make an example of... but I don't believe that you get a little narked with a few folks every now and again and decide to send a mammoth earthquake, and then just for good measure, because you haven't yet got it out of your system, you send a tsunami to finish the job.  


That's not the God I know. 

So what, then?  These earthquakes are caused by faults in the earth's surface.  Does that mean you made a mistake?  If you'd put this world together differently, would stuff like this not happen?  No, I can't subscribe to that either.  Your works are perfect.  You don't make rubbish, and you don't make mistakes.

Is it to do with sin in the world, then?  I know that that's been an explanation for illnesses, suffering that results from broken marriages, crime, evilness of all kinds; the idea that since the Garden of Eden we have slowly distilled our wickedness so the world is polluted with nastiness that pervades all areas of life.  So earthquakes?  I can't make the connection but I can't rule out the possibility that it's somehow our fault...though your average non-Christian might bristle at the idea that we're responsible for the tsunamis and hurricanes and droughts of the world. Back to the drawing board.

Feel free to interject if you want me to think more about any of this, Lord.  I know you have the answer. Is it one that any of us might ever understand this side of heaven?

Thought not.

Hmm.

So this earthquake, then.  Just one of those things?  I don't know.  Seems a bit random to me.  I just want to understand.  Even if it's not great news it'd be helpful to see some meaning in it all.  And if I'm sitting here in my warm kitchen waiting for the arrival of a takeaway with a glass of wine less than arms length from me wondering what it all means, then how much more are the inhabitants of those coastal areas of Japan wondering what it's all about right now?  

I don't know. There's so much I don't know. 


I want to know; I always want to know - but do I really?  Would I like what I hear? Would it make life easier?  Is this how the serpent sold it to Eve; 'you'll understand all those things you want to understand if you just do thissssss...'? 

If you wanted us to have all the answers, you'd have given them to us, I guess.  

So what am I left with?  Well, I'm left with the conclusion that you did not cause it, but you didn't stop it either.  Why not?   Is it so that we might learn to look to you?  Somehow in the wreckage of Japan will people have their attention drawn to you?  Are there Christians whose faith will be deepened or shared as a result of having their own resources demolished?  Will people, left with nothing, turn to you as all they have?  It's true to say, I guess, never having been there, that if you are stripped of everything and no other human being can help, then it's time to understand with a new understanding that you are dependent on God for each breath that you take.  


So, it doesn't really answer my question, but among Christians I can see that for you to allow life to throw rubbish at us might result in a better, deeper, more earnest prayer life, a greater dependency on you, an appreciation of what is important, and also an appreciation of what is good; and maybe more sympathy and something to share with other sufferers.  It might refine us and build character. (How I hate that phrase - makes me think of long, cold walks and eating vegetables against my will). 


We might appreciate that this world is imperfect and temporary and does not have all the answers and therefore look forward more to being with you in a new world that leaves tears and suffering and death behind.  After all, you did it with Job. 


I'm still uneasy with this situation in Japan. Natural disasters seem harder to understand than famines or wars or terrorism, which can be directly related to man's greed or hatred or refusal to do what is right.  But an earthquake?  A tsunami? 


So I come back to you.  Once again I have to bow before you and say, I don't know, but I trust you. Of course, that's easy for me to say - my house and my family were not washed away by a 30 foot wave.   But you made this earth, and you watch over it with love. You know what you're doing, don't you?


'For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD.
As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.'   


Isaiah 55:8-9


I don't know what you're doing, but you do. 


I cannot imagine that you would not be grieved to see your children in Japan suffer as they are. I believe that you're there, walking with them, just as you walk with me.  You have a plan for that guy in the TV footage who has tears streaming down his face as he surveys the place where his town once was.  You have a plan for that terrified looking toddler who is in a picture being scanned for radiation following the explosion at the nuclear plant.  You love them.  You have a plan for every terrified, lost person sitting in a makeshift evacuation centre miles away from their flattened home with nothing but the clothes they have on. Help them, Father God. It looks terrible to me, and I have the chance to turn off the TV and forget about it. 


You are God.  You are the Creator, the Comforter, Lord of the Universe. You are Almighty, all  powerful.  


It must, somehow, be under your control.  Even if we don't understand it. 


Even if I don't understand it.