(Un)Certainty

Sometimes I just don't know.  Sometimes I don't know what the right thing is.  I know what the Bible says, I know what Christ says, and I trust it.  But I wonder how we're really supposed to go about it and if our methods are hurting more than they are helping.  Hurting people, hurting our cause, hurting Christ.  Sometimes, it's really hard to draw lines.  Maybe drawing a line will hurt me and the people around me.  Maybe not drawing a line means I don't trust what God says. Maybe there are some situations in life where God isn't asking us to draw a line, or even stand on either side of one.  

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”  

Sometimes it seems impossible to do both of those things at the same time.  Sometimes loving God, holding to what He says is true, and obeying Him can really, really hurt other people.  Not just offend them, or make them angry, or make them think you are stupid.  Actually hurt them.

But... But...Does that mean you aren't loving them?  Does hurting someone mean you don't care about them?  Does offending them mean you don't want what is best for them?  In complete honesty, doesn't doing the right thing almost always hurt someone, somewhere?

Love God.  Love people.  Speak truth.

Sometimes, I don't like the truth.  In fact, there are a lot of things God says and does that, if I were God, I wouldn't say and do.  But you know what?  I'm not God.  I don't get to tell Him who He is or who He should be.  I accept Him completely, even the things that make me uncomfortable.  And I think that God, in His great sovereignty, understands right and wrong, up and down, hot and cold, back and forth, justice and mercy, judgment and discernment, and even left and right a whole lot better than I do.  I can trust this - even when I don't like it, even when I don't feel it - and believe that His ways and thoughts are higher than my ways and thoughts.  Or, I can discard everything that makes me uncomfortable and end up with a "faith" based on my own god-concept, with no roots, no foundation, no certainty, and no backbone.

I don't understand God, or claim to.  I don't have all the answers, or claim to.  Sometimes I change my mind.  Sometimes I screw up.  Sometimes I say too much and sometimes I say absolutely nothing and in both situations, I usually err.  Sometimes I might even get it right.  But all of the time, God has the answers.  God never changes.  God never screws up.  God always says enough of the right thing.  God always gets it right.  If He didn't, He wouldn't be God. 

He is sovereign.  He is holy.  He is loving.  He is just.  He is right.  He is.  And when I can't trust the world, when I can't trust people, when I can't trust the lines, when I can't trust myself, I can trust Him.  So can you.

No recipe tonight.