I'm sitting here on a stormy Houston afternoon wondering what I'm in for. We moved here from Austin a few weeks ago, following a call to help with starting this new thing called Connections here in Houston, full of visions of what could be, inspired about the possibilities, full of hope about the great things God was going to do. I could see where I was, I could see where we hoped to go, and I felt that I had a decent idea about how we were going to get there.
A forest looks very different when you're standing up on a mountain looking down on top of it than it does when you're in it. From a high place, it's easy to see landmarks to navigate by: a hill off to the left, a clearing over there, a river a mile off. It's easy to see what you're in for, or so you think. So here we are, plunging into the forest, and already I feel like my bearings are not as certain as I thought they were. I remember vaguely where the clearings and hills and rivers are, but I'm far from certain, and as I move forward, I'm taking my best guess about what direction to head in.
I guess this is what it's like to live by faith, and there's a part of me that doesn't like it. I want certainty. And don't tell me that true faith is equal to certainty, because it isn't. Abraham (whose faith is held up as an example of true faith in the book of Hebrews) lived with uncertainty and doubt. King David, who wrote many of the Psalms, many of which are filled with doubt and questioning, was called by God "a man after My own heart." The prophets in the Old Testament had times of great doubt about their futures. John the Baptist questioned who Jesus was. Living by faith means that you keep plodding on when it seems you have good reason to turn back.
And as I keep plodding on (or walking, or running) I also need to remember that I don't need certainty about the destination. The destination isn't the point, and when I get there, it will probably not look like I thought it would. We Christians like to do this with Heaven - we make Heaven the destination, and therefore the point. Heaven is not the point of Christianity, and when we get there, it may not look at all like what we think. God created a Now, and if we're just focused on where we're going to wind up, we miss the Now that God called us to live in, and find Him in. Jesus left the infinite vastness of Eternity to be present in the finite Now - fully present, in all of the laughter and weeping and joy and sorrow and mirth and melancholy, and even doubt (My God, my God, why have You forsaken me??), so why should we who claim to follow Him do otherwise?
What are you beginning? Where are you going? How will you get there? You can be certain of this, and I don't mean to sound gloomy, but you aren't as in control as you think you are, and at any moment, something could send you careening wildly off that road you're speeding down, and you will wind up in a place you weren't prepared to be (go read James 4:14), so please, please don't be so focused on your supposed destination that you ignore the Now. That's where God is.
Posted on
Thursday, June 21, 2007
by Chris Branscome