Certainty/Uncertainty

I have just finished reading a fiction series about a family who all convert to Christianity at a rate of one per book. It was a nice, easy read - I guess the literary equivalent of "easy listening" music. The books were fairly simplistic, in that each addressed one particular issue a person might have with God, solved it, and then the person became a Christian. If only it were so!

Thinking about my own journey, I come back to the simplicity-complexity diagram in a different form: that of certainty/uncertainty. I wondered if God existed, if He was powerful to do anything and if He was interested in me. He proved to me that He is all these things: certainty. I then wondered if He would answer all my prayers - He would not: uncertainty. I wondered if He cared about my family and husband as I do - His Word says yes: certainty. I prayed for all of their salvation, but they are not yet saved: uncertainty. I fell back on the certainty of my own salvation, only to hear that perhaps there is no heaven: uncertainty again. Now the knowledge of heaven is replaced with a better concept of eternity with God: certainty, but for how long?

I am thinking more and more about Olivia's comments about a "hidden God" and not just for those seeking Him for the first time. I think He deliberately hides and reveals Himself to all of us; keeping us always in the area of faith but not full knowledge, trust without certain predictability, some understanding without complete understanding. It is as if He takes His hand away as we walk more surely, and steadies us when we falter, only to remove His hand again so that we walk ourselves as much as we can. (CS Lewis uses this metaphor, and I find it very apt.)

This must be a necessary process if we are to grow, so it is not surprising that it is a lifelong journey (struggle?) to know and trust God. The more we know and trust, the more we are given to know and our certainties are taken away to build our trust higher and stronger. I remember a minister saying that he was praying for protection when he suddenly realized that eleven of the disciples died as martyrs, and that the whole of Christian history is filled with people laying down their lives for God and each other. If it could happen to them, it could certainly happen to him! In the midst of this increased pressure, he nevertheless gave his life to God, to use to take away according to His will. Lewis called it "walking with God from good to good" in Perelandra - He takes us from one good thing to another, if we will but let Him lead.

If this is true, a Christian should expect to spend her whole life seeking to know God better, swimming ever deeper in the pool of theology without ever touching the bottom. She should be always striving (struggling?) to know God more and trust in His ways, and as her trust increases it should be increasingly tested, refined and made to grow stronger and surer. The normal Christian life should thus be one of trials and growth - a fearsome and yet attractive idea! I like the idea that God is always shaping me, even if it is difficult, and that He is the one which has no end, even in eternity. CS Lewis (again) describes it as a story which has no end, and in which each chapter is better than the one before. Amen - so let it be!