Facing Uncertainty

There are lessons about our relationship with God that we need to learn repeatedly. It seems that God throws us different problems just to see if we have learnt our lessons well. Do we really trust Him? Does He really care what happens to us? Can we really depend on him, even if we cannot see His hand moving? Through real problems, real moments of panic – when it seems we stand tottering right at the edge – He tests us to reveal what we really believe deep inside.

Learning these types of lessons – of trust, submission, and humility before God – goes beyond comprehension; we can’t just read, listen and understand with our minds. We need to internalise and practice these truths. We need to have them go deeper in our spirits. We need to incorporate them in our habits, make them part of our attitudes, have them inform our reactions to what we encounter every day. We need to live out these truths.

There are always contrary voices we need to resist in order for God’s truths to take root in us. We will be confronted with these messages – from the world, from well-meaning friends, from the uncertainty in our own hearts. We have to choose to cling on to God’s words with faith.

Although we may feel turmoil, confusion, and lack direction in our lives, God has a deeper plan for us. We may not be aware of it, but He sees everything – our struggles, our pain, our rebellious nature, our efforts to conquer ourselves. He has not forgotten us. He beckons us to rise again. His touch is gentle – so soft, we hardly feel it. When we let Him minister to us, He wipes away our tears.

The walk of a Christian is not easy, but the alternative is harder. The crosses we take up, though heavy, are lighter that the burdens we bore before. As we transform to become slaves of Christ, we find strangely that we gain freedom. We are freed from our harshest task master – our discontented self with our unsatisfied desires. We are freed from the fear that comes from the dominion of others; we no longer need to please men to progress in life.

I am heartened by this prayer of Thomas Merton’s:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

(Thoughts in Solitude)