I Don't Know

There is a lot of pride flying around.  Everyone feels like they must have the answer.  After all, who comes back to someone who does not answer their question?  Who buys something from a salesman who does not know his product inside and out?  The second question may be fair, but Christians need not fall into this trap.  Christians do not need to have all the answers.  We certainly should have more answers than most, but we better not feel we must know all.  Trying to understand everything about God is a dangerous endeavor.  My grandmother likes to say that, "A god small enough to be understood would not be big enough to be worshiped".  This, of course, should not be an excuse to not passionately seek God's face and deeply understand theology, but good theology will lead to an understanding that fully grasping Him is not within our capacity.

Trying to explain everything about God has gotten some people into big trouble.  The way I see it, this was Job's friends' fatal flaw.  For those not familiar with the Biblical account of Job: Job was a man in the ancient Near East from whom God allowed Satan to take nearly everything.  Job was pressed down upon but never crushed.  A lesson from him is perseverance.  Job's friends also provide a lesson: they took it upon themselves to explain everything that Job did wrong--God surely had to be punishing Job because he had sinned.  You see, they had God in a nice little box.  God surely must act in a way that they could understand.  This is the message they convey very beautifully throughout much of the book.  However, in Job, God finally comes on the scene.  When He does, He speaks pretty harshly of Job's friends and the box that they had put Him in.  Beginning in Job 38, God begins speaking in beautifully poetic language essentially saying: did you create this place (the world), do you fully understand it?  The rest of Job seems to build as the magnitude of God is made more evident.  When reading with a pure heart, I begin feeling sorry that I ever tried to pronounce my preconceptions on God's character.

It is clear that God put Job's story in the Bible for a reason  The lesson it great, and it continues to be taught throughout Scripture.  A similar lesson is taught in John 9.  In this passage we find Jesus, His disciples, and a man who had been blind from birth. When Jesus and the disciples encounter this man, the disciples ask whether it was this man or his parents who sinned--resulting in his blindness.  After all, there must be a cause and effect relationship that we can understand.  Jesus' response is awesome.  He responds that this man's blindness is not a result of the man's or his parent's sin; rather, this man's blindness has occurred so that the glory of God can be magnified.  Awesome!  This is not a cause and effect relationship we anticipate.  Blindness must be bad right?  It is a handicap.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What is a handicap to men, can be a tool to God.  Did you lose your job?  You must have sinned.  Right?  Not necessarily.  That loss of your job may be a way that God is supposed to be glorified.  Do you have a mentally handicapped son?  You must have sinned.  Not necessarily.  That handicapped son may glorify God more than 100 intellectually fit folks.  I know my brother does.  Josh is currently 17, with the mind of a 3 year old, and the joy, peace, and love we should all have.  When someone gets home, Josh is at the door waiting.  When Josh goes to bed he asks me to say prayers with him.  When a parent gets home after a sibling has been home with Josh, the first thing he does is thank the sibling for watching him.  Josh's business is people.  He does not know a stranger, and he is always in a good mood.  God's glory is displayed through Josh.  Josh cannot even read, but he embodies God's character pretty well.

As we continue reading in John 9, we find another example of people who refused to say I don't know.  The blind man healed by Jesus, ends up before Pharisees--a religious sect of the time.  They want to know how this healing happened.  After all, this man was born blind--clearly a sinner.  The Pharisees proceed to get real wound up about how Jesus couldn't be from God because He heals people on the Sabbath.  How dare Him do good on the holy day!  This religious sect was part of the group Jesus reserved His harshest words for-- calling them blind guides and whitewashed tombs (pretty caskets).  He told them that they better stop worrying about how holy others think they are and take care of how holy their hearts really are.  They better let go of their desire for power, influence, and the approval of others and seek God.  They better stop putting God into a box and telling others to jump through their hoops to reach God.  They better learn how to say I don't know when Scripture is not explicit about an aspect of God's character.

These lessons are incredibly applicable to us today.   We have built some great institutions in the name of God.  We better make sure those institutions do not put God in a box.  We better make sure we still seek Him with a broken and humble heart.  We better be wiling to abandon our degrees, buildings, and titles if God makes it apparent we should.  We better stand firm in what is clear and be flexible with what has not been revealed to us.  We better not get caught up dating how old the Earth is and neglect being just.  We better not get so attached to our political beliefs that we forget that those thinking differently than us are not our enemies--even if they were we better pray for them.  We better not get so caught up in our theological school of thought we neglect mercy.  We better put the first thing first, and that first thing can only be first if the person in the mirror is at least second.  The first thing better be God, and we better realize that many questions about His actions will need to receive an answer of I don't know.