I trust God. Understanding is the Part I Struggle With

There are a lot of things in my faith that I don’t spend a lot of time wrestling with. For instance:

• I believe that God is good
• I believe that He is righteous
• I believe that He is trustworthy
• I believe that He loves us
• I believe that He is in control
• I believe that He can use even the hardest parts of our lives for good…even when we can’t see it in the moment

Those are not the things where I typically struggle. Understanding is.

 It seems I’ve always been someone who wants to understand how things work. Maybe it’s why I got into technology. Maybe it’s just the way God wired my brain. Whatever the reason, when something happens, my neuroextra response is to start connecting dots. I want to understand the consequences and reason out the outcome. I want to understand what I should have done differently, and maybe even more than that, I want to understand what I should do next.

 The older I get, the more I realize that understanding creates a sense of safety for me. If I can understand it, maybe I can avoid hardship and failure next time. If I can identify where things went wrong, maybe I can keep it from happening again. If I can figure out why God allowed something, maybe I can make peace with it.

 At least that’s what my brain keeps telling me.

 One of the decisions I still occasionally find myself revisiting is my decision to leave the military 10 years (well, 9 years, 8 months and 1 day….but who’s counting). It wasn’t a careless decision. I thought about it. I prayed about it. I made the best decision I knew how to make with the information I had at the time.

 Every now and then, I find myself wondering if it was the “right” decision. Understand, I know it wasn’t a “bad” decision…but was it right. The honest answer is that I don’t know.

 I can see a tremendous amount of good that came from it. I’m not overly disappointed with how my life has been. I can identify relationships, opportunities, experiences, and lessons that likely never would have happened. My life would look completely different today if I had stayed in. At the same time, I can see what I gave up. I don’t have military retirement, I don’t know what assignments might have come next, what doors would have opened, who I may have met, or what challenges I would have faced.

 The reality is that unlike George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, I don’t get a heavenly tour of the road not taken. I don’t get to compare the life I lived against the life I might have lived. I only get to see one version of the story.

 And that’s where the tension lives.

 If I’m being honest, despite occasionally looking back, my struggle with understanding isn’t limited to decisions I’ve already made. I still struggle with wanting to understand what I should do today.

 When I’m facing a decision, I want clarity. I want confidence. I want to know I’m moving in the direction God wants me to go. Sometimes I pray, seek wisdom, talk with trusted people, and I still feel like I’m staring through fog.

 Part of me would love for God to hand me a detailed roadmap with every turn clearly marked. Let’s be honest, a large part of me would love that.

 Instead, usually He seems to hand me enough light for the next step. Sometimes I think of the scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he stands at the edge of what appears to be a bottomless ravine. He knows he has to go forward, but he can’t see a path. Eventually he takes a step anyway and discovers there was a bridge there all along.

 I’m not suggesting life works exactly like a movie and please don’t go out and try to cross a ravine without a visible bridge.  But there are times my faith feels a little like that scene. I want to see the bridge before I step onto it. And God often seems content to let me discover it one step at a time.

 I’ve also learned that waiting on God and refusing to move are rarely the same thing. I’m aware that a parked car can’t be steered. There have been times where I’ve waited because I genuinely wanted and was waiting for God’s direction. But truthfully, there have also been many times when I was waiting because I wanted certainty. I wanted to know the outcome before I took the next step. I wanted understanding before I was willing to move.

 The problem is that God shows Himself to be more interested in teaching me trust than providing certainty.

 That’s probably why Proverbs 3:5-6 has followed me for so much of my life:

“Trust in Yahweh with all your heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” (WEB)

What strikes me now is that this verse doesn’t tell me to stop thinking. It doesn’t tell me to stop asking questions. It simply reminds me not to lean on my understanding as the thing that I rely on.

That’s difficult for me...for the way I’m wired. I still want to understand. I suspect I always will.

 But, the longer I walk with God, the more I admit that His faithfulness has never and will never depend on my ability to understand everything He was doing or on me getting every decision exactly right.

 One of my former pastors used to joke that God isn’t pacing back and forth across Heaven saying, “Oh My Me, [Gail] made the wrong choice. What am I going to do now? My whole plan is ruined.”

 It always made me laugh. But hidden inside the humor was a truth I need to hear. Sometimes I act/feel as though God’s plans depend on my getting every decision exactly right. As though one wrong move is enough to derail everything He intended. How prideful is that?

Scripture paints a very different picture of God.

 My choices matter. They have consequences. Some are wonderful. Some are painful. Some follow us for years. But there is a difference between my choices having consequences and my choices being powerful enough to defeat God’s purposes.

 I’m reminded that Jesus didn’t always calm the storm. Sometimes He simply rode through it with His disciples. His presence was the promise, even when the waves remained.

 Maybe that’s what I sometimes need to re-learn.

 God’s Word says:

“Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.” (Psalm 119:105, WEB)

A lamp doesn’t illuminate the entire journey. It only provides enough light for the next few steps…sometimes for the next step. But it doesn’t mean I know which step is the right one.

 Maybe faith is learning to walk with the light we’ve been given instead of demanding to see the entire road. Or it’s taking the next step even if we don’t know it’s the right one.

 The bottom line is:

• I still believe that God is good
• I still believe He is trustworthy
• I still believe He is working, even when I can’t see the whole picture

In addition to all of that, I may one day become more comfortable with the tension of uncertainty being part of the journey.

Not because I’ve stopped wanting answers. But because I’m slowly accepting that not every question has to be answered before I take the next step.