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"We love closure, resolution
and clarity, while thinking that we are people of
'faith'. How strange that the very word 'faith'
has come to mean its exact opposite." --
Richard Rohr, OFM
I Want To
Know
Will Brian return safely
from Iraq? Will Mina recover
from her brain aneurism? Will 14-year-old Brian
survive his suicidal thoughts? Will chemotherapy
conquer Amy's breast cancer?
Will my kids grow up to
love Christ?
Will their marriages
survive? Will we be able to
pay our next set of bills? Will my surgery be
successful?
Will my 3rd-grader get
a good teacher? Will my car last another six months?
Will I be able to retire comfortably?
Each day produces multiple
uncertainties.
Will it be OK? I want
to know.
We don't
ask the Lord to reveal a 20-year-plan. "Please just
give me a little certainty." Meanwhile, we rehearse all the
possibilities and our responses in each scenario.
If this ... then that. But if something else ...
then, what?
As people
of faith, how should we
live?
We spend much of our emotional energy
in the pursuit of answers, insights, glimpses, and
clarity. We fret because of the uncertain, worry
about the unforeseen, and stress over the unknown. We may agonize over the
future and lose sleep over the "not
yet."
Christ instead calls us
to peace, contentment, and confidence. To faith. Such
f
aith may not resolve
confusion but produces confidence amidst
it. Turbulence may
persist, but we trust. Pressure may
rise, but we have peace.
As Rohr notes, too
often we view faith as our key to
clarity. We believe in God; He should tell us what we
want to know. We pray; He should provide. We serve;
He should save us (from ignorance and bad
decision-making).
Somewhere along the
way, we reversed the biblical definition of faith.
Faith has become our means to sight. Yet, the faith modeled
by Jesus had little to do with an orderly, safe, sanitary, or "successful"
life. He held to faith despite homelessness, harm,
rejection, abandonment, and death.
We prefer the modern
version. I want to
know!
The Apostle Paul also
said "I want to know."
But he finished it off
differently than we usually do. He wrote, "I want
to know Christ
"
(Philippians 3:10). For Paul, that was enough.
For him, nothing else compared. Whatever we face
this week, may that be true for us, too.
In HOPE -
David | 
