On questions God doesn't answer

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As an author and voracious devourer of fiction, I consistently get a kick out of the comedy Stranger than Fiction (2006), with Will Farrell and Emma Thompson.

Will Farrell’s character, IRS agent Harold Crick, begins to hear a narrator’s voice over his life–a narrator who has power to determine his circumstances. And who indicates he’s going to die.

Harold seeks a literature professor’s advice (Dustin Hoffman), who suggests he start to find his author by determining whether he’s in a comedy or a tragedy.

I can’t help but laugh out loud as Harold keeps a tally in a notebook of whether he is, indeed, or a comedy or a tragedy.

But this week I also found myself in the midst of Harold Crick’s notebook. In the midst of raising teenagers wandering far more than I’m comfortable with–I’ve written some about scrounging for hope. As author Elizabeth Stone has written,

Making the decision to have a child–it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

And as I wait…and wait…and wait on God, I find myself looking for clues about what he’s doing. Sometimes, I admit I am tallying them in a mental notebook.

My soul is asking searing questions like,

Is God faithful to faithful parents?
Is he doing good here? Is he good?

If you’re in a hardscrabble season, maybe you can identify with this. And sometimes, our mental tallies can be really some form of He Loves Me/He Loves Me Not.

What We Don’t Get to Know

But one of the verses ricocheting in my head this week–oddly! I know!–is Samuel’s words to Saul: “Rebellion is like the sin of divination” (1 Samuel 15:23). Rebellion is on par with fortune-telling, and vice-versa.

Rebellion obviously moves against God, in my mind: “I want to do what I want.”

But divination was some form of reading the tea leaves–of consulting another deity to find out what was going to happen. You could say it’s leaning on your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6), of moving away from trust and into more control than God’s given us. In trying to answer questions God doesn’t answer.

I must know. I must understand.

Questions God Doesn’t Answer

When bad stuff’s happening, comparison is so tempting to me. I’m trying to figure out whether this is normal. And maybe what to expect, or how God’s responding to me.

Yet I think of Jesus’ words to Peter, when Peter questioned if John would die the same way Peter would: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”

What God’s doing in each of our stories is unique to his particular plan for us, for our kids. I can’t look at a friend’s troubles–or lack of troubles–with her child and mark my life up to tragedy, or comedy, or he loves me, or he loves me not.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Like Harold, we offer a lot of interpretation to our own reality. With all the unknowns, we’re often trying to piece together a story about why things are the way they are. But that story tells a lot more about us than the unseen unknowns. (Consider Job’s story, who never knew of a cosmic battle that echoing into the 21st century.)

Consider two people whose homes are robbed. One vows, “That’s never going to happen to me again! I’m hunting this guy down.”

Another dissolves into fear. “I’m so vulnerable. How do I know I won’t be assaulted and killed in my sleep? I’m terrified.”

But if we get the narrative wrong, we get our response wrong. (Don’t miss the post on this, The Stories We Tell Ourselves.)

We look at the current outcome and determine our assessment of his character–rather than trusting an outcome we can’t see to the character we can trust.

In our attempts to read God’s mind, we tell ourselves the wrong story. And too often? It’s He loves me not.

Filling in the Blanks

Geri Scazzero suggests,

The ninth commandment states, “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor” (Exodus 20:16 ). Yet we break this commandment when we jump to conclusions about other people that likely are not true.*

And honestly, I’m guilty of doing this about God.

I can be guilty of adding clarity for God when he hasn’t actually told me anything. I’m piecing together “signs” or “open doors” to decrease my own ambiguity. I second-guess decisions when their outcome looks bleak.

But like the Israelites toting the Ark of the Covenant into battle only to get slaughtered–God is not my good-luck charm.

Yes, the Holy Spirit illuminates God’s teaching and helps us to know His mind (1 Corinthians 2:16 ). But God still holds his secrets (Deuteronomy 29:29 ). There are questions God doesn’t answer in this lifetime, and we still see dimly right now (1 Corinthians 13:12 ). After all, “who can know the mind of the Lord? And who has been his counselor?” (Romans 11:34 ).

Job, too, confesses, “I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:3 ).

Humility, Ed Welch writes, was God’s gift to Job in the middle of pain and questions. I find immense value when Job says he lays his hand over his mouth in silence (Job 40:4).

God begs us to a trusting humility of mind toward the immense complexity of how and why He acts.

So with me, consider closing your notebook this week. Let’s sit with him in the middle of mystery, waiting, and…well, pain.