In the last year I've had to make a significant number of choices and decide how to respond to God's call in a number of ways. This constant discernment process, which I am sure I'll never leave, has granted me much occasion to reflect upon certainty. More than anything else in the past year I've wanted to be certain of everything. Here's a sample of what I'm talking about: I've wanted (and still want) to be certain about stuff in my personal life like where to go to seminary, whether Pippi and I are making the right choice in getting married at this point, choosing the right classes, joining the right justice organizations. I want certainty in bigger vocational questions like whether I'm called to ministry that especially focuses on urban ministry, emergent church, justice and social work, new testament studies and a subsequent professorship, or all of these, and if all of these then what in the world does that look like? Should I do CPE where I am? Should I join the CML cohort? I want certainty in huge theological questions like what faith means, what the role of justice is in salvation and what salvation is, how God relates to us. Can we know God's metaphysical attributes? Who cares about the Trinity? What in the world happened on the cross and why does it matter? These questions are NOT easily cleared up upon consultation of Scripture, tradition, reason, or church teaching.
In short, and I think if you have made it this far in the post this will be obvious, I spend a lot of time being uncertain. And I'm willing to bet that I'm not alone. Think about it. What can you say about your life with 100% certainty? I've thought about this a lot lately.
Then
Recently
It HIT me-
It is here that I most often meet God. In my frailty and my uncertainty God is most clearly witnessed to. It is in this state of uncertainty that I am reminded of the vainity, the absurdity, and the transient nature of life of which Qoheleth writes in Ecclesiastes. It is because I am not certain about anything that I trust, have faith in God. This place of uncertainty, where I question my very existence and God's very existence is holy ground. I meet the God who welcomes questioning and who takes me seriously enough to listen to my questions and respond in a diverse number of ways from aha moments to suggestions from friends to God's very Word.
This is spectacularly witnessed in the call of Moses. Moses is on holy ground and Moses is uncertain. The unlikely liberator has shown a passion for justice and God's imagined future by the time of his call in the Exodus narrative. But by the time the call rolls around, he is uncertain about so much: whether God has the right person, whether the Hebrews or Pharaoh will listen to him, whether God's future will ever be a reality. In his uncertainty he questions and God takes his questions seriously. As my Pentateuch teacher points out, "God will move with Moses, even adapting original divine plans in view of Moses' considerations. God's way into the future is thus not directed solely by the divine word and will (Fretheim, Exodus, 53)." Moses is uncertain. God meets him in this uncertainty and even changes God's own mind for the human agent. Our uncertainty is not something to flee from but something to embrace. We are called to struggle with God and our uncertainty is occasion to do so. God has blessed us with this discomfort so that we can meet and grow in relationship with God. Uncertainty is truly holy.
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