Life is filled with many unknowns. This leads some to essentially check out and avoid wrestling through important matters – preferring to play instead of work. While others are at the opposite extreme, always worried and working to figure out how to make life more certain and manageable. Both of these approaches can become faithless. And we must learn how to navigate the uncertainties of this life with a courageous faith and confident hope.
On the one hand, we’re not living by faith when we avoid situations or when we attempt to control them on our terms. Wisdom requires us to discern when to engage and when to yield.
Of course, there’s no use worrying about things outside of our control. And perhaps the best course of action is to just let things be. But this is a strategic yielding and not merely avoiding tough considerations. At the same time, God has given us the dignity of causation and we have the responsibility to exercise this freedom of making things happen. But this is not to assume life now depends on our ability to figure things out.
Whether we’re more prone to avoid or control, both of these extremes are ways to manage our fears of the unknown. A better approach is to live in hope – fully trusting God with the outcomes of our story.
As such, we don’t have to put our head in the sand when we face uncertainties. We can courageously engage, even when the journey is messy, knowing that God’s ending will be good. Likewise, we can confidently allow things to be undone for now because God is still in control working things out on his timeline and not ours.
We invite much unnecessary heartache and frustration when we ignore issues or try to take matters into our own hands.
In the end, while the path before us is marked with many uncertainties, live with a bold faith and confident hope. Play your part while resting in the goodness of God’s larger story.
Photo by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash
