We Don’t Have To Know Everything
Robb Hadley
Fayetteville, AR
10/28/98
We Don’t Have To Know Everything
The nationally syndicated columnist Myrne Roe recently quoted an old Irish blessing she found on a plaque in a holiday catalog:
May those who love us, love us; and those that don’t love us,
May God turn their hearts;
And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles
So we’ll know them by their limping.
We may chuckle at that sentiment, but we had best not do it smugly. If you consider it, you might recognize the same kind of thinking in yourself.
We all want to know that God is working in our lives, and that often presents a problem. On one extreme, there are Christians who are certain they have it figured out down to the last detail. At the other extreme are those who aren’t even sure God is working in their lives. Some among the former charge the latter with being “unspiritual.” Some among the latter accuse the former of having fallen prey to subjectivism. Some of the time, both accusations are correct.
I submit to you that a Christian can know for sure that God is working in his life. I further submit, however, that with our limited knowledge we have about as full a view of the big picture as a moth on a movie screen.
How can we be sure God is working on us and in us? The Bible says He is. Just what He has in mind, however, is often far beyond our ability to speculate. Such speculation can be a profitable exercise. Meditating on what we are doing for God and what He is doing for us is profitable. But we need to remind ourselves that “we walk by faith, not by sight” and that “faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 5.7; Romans 10.17.) We don’t have to know everything.
Robb Hadley
Fayetteville, Ark.
