I HAVEN'T A CLUE

Courtesy of Charles Schulz Museum Facebook Page

BY STEVE DUNN

Have you ever had an experience where something just didn't make sense?  As human beings we want to know what is the meaning of the things that happen to us or we must face.  There is a sense of anxiety that touches when something is unexplainable.  We feel powerless when we must say, "I don't have a clue?"

"God must have a reason," is the response that many Christians give when facing these situations.

"I guess we'll know when we finally get to heaven" and then we try press on with our lives.

Some call such responses, faith.  Some call it naivete.  Some call it stupidity.

And yet, who can explain everything that happens to us in life?  The other day I saw a bumper sticker that said "Logic is my co-pilot."  Yet not everything in the world is logical.  Scholars write massive volumes to try and explain what makes historical figures tick.  But does 400 pages on the life of Adolf Hitler really explain why childhood trauma make a monster when other traumatized persons become saints?

The mind is not the only way people arrive at understanding.  Not everything that gives us assurance or direction comes from some carefully designed algorithm.  Blaise Pascal, the 19th century mathematician and philosopher once said, "The heart has reasons that reason does not know."

In a complex humanity, understanding and meaning have complex routes to the human heart.  This does not imply that we must act impulsively or blindly; but it does say that to live and act we must move forward many times in trust.

This is where faith must come into the picture.  Faith in God in particular.  I know my instincts are not always right and my knowledge of a situation is certainly incomplete.  Simply trusting in myself is ultimately a formula for when failure when life finally asks a question for which I not only don't have an answer, but didn't even know it was a question.

I know that people have free wills and personal agendas and sometimes use others, so simply trusting in some other human is a formula for victimization.  Human nature still produces Adolf Hitlers and Jim Joneses.

As a Christian, the only alternative - logical by the world's standards or not - is to trust God.

Psalm 118:8 “It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.”

Isaiah 26:3: You will keep in perfect peace
    those whose minds are steadfast,
    because they trust in you.

(C) 2013 by Stephen L Dunn