Are you ever confused by life? Ever have difficulty finding the meaning of tough circumstances? Ever feel bewildered, even by God? Well we’re in pretty good company. The Psalmist and prophet alike ask, “How long, O Lord” (Ps 13, 86, Hab 1:2). The speaker in Isaiah cries out, “Truly, you are a God who hides himself…” (Isa 45:15). Jesus says the disciples will experience trouble, the writer of Peter predicts persecution for the followers of Jesus, the sermon on the mount invites us to countercultural downward mobility, and Paul laments our predisposition to sin (Jn 16, 1 Pet 1, Matt 5, Rom 7). Confusion indeed; confusion brought on in the wake of God’s presence.
In fact, if we aren’t confused by God now and then, maybe it’s because we’re not listening to God. Maybe we’re listening to the same old drivel we’ve heard about God, or told ourselves for years. One of the problems with religion is that we tend to make God look like us, to create God in our image rather than our growing to look like God. And we’ve all done that, attempted to put God in a box where we can feel safe, secure, and that our life with God is predictable, under control. In fact, we often hear, when life is out of sorts, “God is in control.” Does that really help? Is that even what the Bible teaches? Saul of Tarsus thought he had God all figured out only to find, after he was struck blind on the road to Damascus by the light of God’s presence, that the very things he thought got him God’s approval were the very things he had to relinquish as Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles (Phil 3:7-9). For God loves freedom to be who He is; indeed God’s very name says that He is who He is (Ex 3:14). Not what we make God out to be.
And so Jesus Christ breaks through the walls of our religious boxes and unleashes the mighty and prodigal love of God to give life in unimaginable people and places. In fact this love of God comes as something much more mighty and powerful than anything we could ask or think (1 Cor 2:9).
So what are we to do with our confusion? How can we respond when God confuses us? Three things come to mind as layers of the courage to let God be God when He is speaking or behaving unexpectedly: wait, discern, and engage the courage to surrender.
I don’t like to wait and neither do most of us. We are a society of ten second commercials, instant gratification, and fast food. Waiting before God means showing up again and again and again to sit still, stop doing anything, and listen. Peter was shown repeatedly that, yes, it really was true that God wanted to extend the gift of salvation in the Christ to those filthy Gentiles (Acts 10). If what we think we may be hearing really is of God then we will hear the same message over and over and over. God doesn’t mind repeating the Word of love until we get the message. “Seek the Lord while He is near” often means for us to wait before God until He comes to us, finds us, and loves us into life right in the midst of our confusion.
Then there’s discernment, a good old English word that means simply seeing or hearing what’s really going on, getting at the spiritual meaning of events or circumstances or changes. The writer of 1 John urges us to test the message to see if it is of God (1 Jn 4:1-5). One translation of Jn 16:13 would promise that God’s Spirit will show us what’s going on, what’s coming down, what our confusing circumstances may mean. And there’s a litmus test that applies across the boards: does the message we think we may be hearing from God ring true to God’s will to give life to all people in Jesus Christ (Jn 6:40)? If so, the confusion may come from God’s expanding our horizons.
And then there’s the courage to surrender.
Of course, it can be scary to surrender to God, to broaden our minds or expand our horizons. It was terrifying for the church to finally embrace Newton’s theory of gravity, Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, the abolition of slavery, or the rectitude of the Civil Rights Movement. It was terrifying for Moses to be confronted by God in a burning bush; Saul of Tarsus was petrified with blindness at the voice of Jesus on the Road to Damascus; and even Jesus in Gethsemane was stressed to the point of hematidrosis, sweating blood at the prospect of His coming agony.
But God says, “Fear not” repeatedly in Scripture. And if its terrifying to surrender to God as we are led through new and unexpected territory, it can be even more frightening to find ourselves fighting against God (Acts 5:39).
Is it time for us, for the church to engage in the courage to surrender to the sometimes confusing extension of God’s loving embrace to those we thought outside the gates of God’s love? Is it time for us all to join God’s embrace of the outcast, the gay, the unprivileged , the unwhite, and the unmale people in our midst? Is it time for us to join God in the confusing, wonderful, inclusive grace of Jesus Christ who beckons us all, all with outstretched arms, saying, “Come unto me…” (Matt 11:30)?
Would Christ in us do any less?