Choosing To Believe
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, for whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. - John 3:16
The toughest thing about writing is that you never know exactly what your reader is going through when he or she is taking in your words. I wish that I knew all that you were walking through, wonder, and wishing for right now. But even if I don’t know those things exactly, I bet there are a few things I know about you.
I know you want to know the reason why your life doesn’t look the way you thought it would. I know you want to understand the purpose behind all of the confusion and disappointment and waiting. And I know you think that if you can just figure out what the reason is, then endurance and perseverance get a little easier. You can push through. You can hold on, if you can just get some clarity around why things have to be this way.
But that clarity doesn’t always come the way we think it should, does it? God doesn’t always answer my questions like we'd hope. In fact, sometimes God seems downright silent when we're in the thick of a difficult season.
I had a conversation about these frustrations with my mentor Elaine a couple years back. I had just gone through a breakup and was dealing with several bouts of rejection in the midst of a job search, and Elaine had texted me to encourage me in the midst of everything I was walking through.
“Well for the record, I have no idea what God is up to in your life,” she said. “But at least you know He is working because things are clearly not happening in the way you thought, or would want - and that usually means the enemy is working - but more importantly, God is working it all together for good…your good but also to His glory.”
“You’re right,” I responded, knowing there was truth to what she was saying, but still feeling frustrated. "I’m just really struggling not to get discouraged right now with everything that’s happening. I know God is a purposeful God, but I’d love to know what the heck His reason for all of this is.”
A few minutes later, she responded with one of her famous mic-drop worthy texts.
She wrote, “What if God is saying, “Kristen, even if I explained to you what my reasons are…what makes you think you would even understand them? My thoughts and my ways are so much higher than your own - what makes you think you would understand even if I told you why?”
Whoa.
Talk about getting a dose of humility. All of this time, I had just assumed that whatever season I was in, whatever circumstance I was dealing with, I could cope with it if God would just give me the reason behind it all. I had never considered the fact that I wasn’t even guaranteed to understand His reasoning. This was a particularly hard realization for me to deal with, because I like knowing things. I love knowledge and learning and understanding. I’m kind of a nerd like that. But if I’ve learned anything over the past few years, it’s that knowing and believing are two very different things.
As followers of Jesus, we aren’t called to know. We are called to believe.
Arguably one of the most famous verses of Scripture, John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, for whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (emphasis mine).
When John wrote that statement, he didn’t say, “whosoever knows” or “whosoever understands.” He said, “whosoever believes.” God doesn’t expect us to know everything. He doesn’t need us to understand all of the inner workings of His plan and His reasoning. He just wants us to trust Him. He wants us to believe.
If there’s anything we humans have in common, it’s that we are all going to walk through seasons we never planned on being in. And it can be really tempting to start asking the “why” questions when you’re in the middle of one of those seasons. But if you don’t mind, do me a favor next time you start questioning God. Instead of getting hung up on trying to figure out the reason for your unexpected season, choose to trust your Heavenly Father. Ask Him to help you want to believe more than you want to know. Because if you believe without having to know everything, well, that’s faith. And having faith is our only hope as we walk through an unexpected season.