Sorry for the lapse in blog posts...I'm back now.
If there is one thing I'm learning right now...it is this: that my days hold no guarantees except the guarantee of uncertainty. Often we find ourselves encountering difficult circumstances, strained relationships, confusion, and extreme challenges. I know when I wake up each morning I can't plan every detail, but I certainly don't have these challenges typed in my To-Do List in Microsoft Outlook. These encounters are usually unplanned and catch us by surprise. There are thousands of variable that make up our day...and they all add up to one thing: an uncertain outcome. Most days things could go either way...heads or tails...win or lose...live or die.
Oswald Chambers wrote, "To be certain to God means that we are uncertain in all our ways; we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should rather be an expression of breathless expectation."
The key is keeping a sense of destiny coupled with the degrees of uncertainty and challenge. We can not fear the uncertain or unknown, but must remember that God is with us!
I definitely believe in planning and goal-setting. But there are just some things in life, in work, in ministry, in relationships...you can't plan or predict. And that drives many of us crazy on the inside. We want control, but the decision to follow Christ is letting Jesus take the wheel. Of course, some of us prefer to act like backseat drivers...or even worse, we act like little children that drive their parents crazy by asking one question over and over...'are we there yet?'
The more I think about this, the more I think that spiritual maturity is less about planning out the future and is more about a moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Spirit of God. I think we simply like to be in control of our futures and desperately want certainty. But faith involves a loss of control...and with a loss of control comes a loss of certainty. Faith is the willingness and readiness to embrace guaranteed uncertainty.
Enjoy the adventure!
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3 comments:
I agree that no matter how much you plan and how many to-do-lists you create...LIFE HAPPENS! Many of you know my plight at this time in looking for employment. I am thinking, "How much more uncertainty could there be?" I know that God is in control of the situation and I do have faith that He will provide a means for me to support my family and my church.
Could it be that I need some additional spiritual maturity? The answer, with not too much thought is, YES...and maybe more, if not all, of us need some, too. Lee, thanks for all you do!
I truely believe that God has a purpose no matter how we feel in the day to day life and the uncertainty we all face everyday but I was raised in the way that no matter what comes in my path whether it be good or bad that the decisions we make in life are why we are where we are..and that no matter how hard it seems God never leaves us and is always there trying to guide us to be better people to serve him...more to that being that when one door closes another chapter in our journey called life that surely there is another door that is opening...We make life the best we can an should be thankful for that day that moment and that minute...I have found this to be very true for me in the sense of some of the choices I have made in my life but out of some of my bad choices and hard work I have had rewards when I have turned to God and repented and asked for forgiveness...I have found that God works in his time and not mine and I am thankful for that...I trust that God has already planned my life and even though sometimes I veer from that path he has made for me that I have choices to get back to where he wants me to be..I feel that everyone is on their path and no matter what happens God hears us and will answer but in his time and his time alone..What we choose to do with the answers he gives us is how our life will be at that time....
I love to embrace the uncertain because I know God will never give me more than I can handle...even though sometimes it scares me to death...
I am no perfect Christian by any means of the word but I have learned that sometimes no matter how hard I try to plan not always but alot of the time it never turns out to be what I expected it to be but I trust God in that it is what he expected..
Love to all and God Bless!
and Have a Blessed and safe Thanksgiving!!
Interesting conclusion that the only certain thing we have is uncertainty.
It is something we experience moment by moment. What I dont see is how this fact implies a God.
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