The Uncertainty of the Unknown
Things transpire we don’t understand. Our minds try to grapple with the questions that arise. Our soul feels all of the turmoil as our aching heart pounds with the heaviness of disappointment and uncertainty. I’m wrestling with things handed to me I don’t want to take. I don’t want to carry that, I don’t want what’s been given. One day my life is going in one direction, the next the preverbal rug is yanked out from under me sending my life spiraling in a different direction. Id like to give it back but now it’s mine to navigate.
How does one handle all of the feelings that come, all of the questions that arise that cannot be answered? Questions demand answers. Our soul demands to be coddled when it cries. As a believer I am not to be led or follow my feelings. They are real but not fact or solid reality. They must be processed through not given in to.
I find myself wondering…not the usual “WHY” is this happening or why did you let this happen as if God himself is in control of every decision people make or every circumstance coming to us. Things happen. Life is messy. God is not the author of all of the bad things but it’s easy to blame him when our lives feel fractured.
I’m systematically going through my mental library of my knowledge of God. This is where I start after the tidal wave of emotions and questions. For me personally I process…sometimes for days before I land in a place that I can go forward. Only then do I proceed. What do I know for sure to be true? What am I convinced of more than anything else…I start here.
1. God is good. Period. When my situations are not good I can trust that God is still good and has only my good in mind. Psalms 107:1 “Oh give thanks to the lord, for he is good…” James 1:17 “Every good gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”Psalms 145:9 “The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.” Nahum 1:7a “The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble…” I KNOW this to be true through not only his word but also my experience of him. So if my situation is not good it is not from him.
2. I have an enemy. The serpent from the garden, the adversary of God himself. He hates me. John 10:10a “The thief (enemy) comes only to steal and kill and destroy…” If my situation is stealing from me my enemy orchestrated it. 1 Thess. 2:18 “For we wanted to come to you, I Paul more than once, and yet Satan hindered us.” He works in our circumstances to stop the plan of God.
Even with knowing that, my situation is the same…I can’t change it or alter its course. For all of my trying I cannot make anything different. Trying to do so would only frustrate me. I find myself with more questions than answers, more disillusionment than my heart can grapple with. My question is not why because it really doesn’t matter; knowing why doesn’t change anything. It’s not when because we cannot know the future.
I must choose to trust. Trust is a concept hard to hold onto. It’s not comfortable or logical. It feels scary and irresponsible. Trusting is like handing the burden of my heart over to someone else, here take this please. I no longer have to carry a weight to heavy for me. I must rely on the one who carries it for me. Can this person effectively handle what has been faithfully entrusted to them? Yes because God himself carries it. Psalms 68:19 GNT “Praise the Lord, who carries our burdens day after day; he is the God who saves us. “ Psalms 46:1 “God is our refuge and strength, a great help in times of distress.”
I don’t have the strength to carry the unknowns of a virus I cannot even see or a future that hasn’t arrived. I am not equipped but my Father is. He has already seen my beginning to my end. He knows the future; He’s been there. He has left me clues and breadcrumbs along the way I will walk to help me navigate the waters of uncertainty. I won’t ever have all of the answers I would like but I serve the one who does.
I’m left to choose…to walk out everyday of this new reality that is my life. I fully believe that even though my enemy handed this opportunity to me I can also fully believe that my God already had a plan to use it for my good. He is powerful and wise enough to turn it into something that will be far better than I could imagine or realize now. My perspective is so very limited it cannot be trusted.
My God is trustworthy. His plans for me are Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” My imagination can run free to dream what my future will look like. It’s full of hope and possibility. I will be helping people all around me find hope and life in Jesus. I don’t know when or where or how. I don’t need to know that; but I do need to believe that it is coming.
When your heart is heavy and weighed down, when the future seems uncertain and veiled, when you don’t have answers, choose. Choose to hand it over to the only one that can carry the fear of the unknown; the only one who can fix what is broken and create something new out of that brokenness. Begin to dream of what will be when what is is no more.