Twilight Faith blog

D. A. Carson. How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (p. 226):

The mystery of providence defies our attempt to tame it by reason. I do not mean it is illogical; I mean that we do not know enough to be able to unpack it and domesticate it. Perhaps we may gauge how content we are to live with our limitations by assessing whether we are comfortable in joining the biblical writers in utterances that mock our frankly idolatrous devotion to our own capacity to understand.

I found this quote in an article by C.J. Mahaney titled “9/11, Crisis, and the Pastor”, and it jumped out at me right away because it describes me so perfectly. I am the sort of person who would love to understand everything about the the world, the universe, God, people and myself, yet I tend to regard this desire in me to be properly tempered by the knowledge that while God works logically, I am simply incapable of understanding most of the time. After all, it would be terribly proud of me to think, at any point in time, that I am particularly knowledgeable or understanding or capable of being so. However, I have never conceived of it as being a “frankly idolatrous devotion”. I mean, I think there’s nothing wrong with wanting to understand and make sense of God and life. But while I was considering Carson’s words, I realized that I really do idolize understanding. If something doesn’t make sense to me, I have a tendency not to believe it, both in day-to-day trivial matters and very serious matters of faith. Maybe that’s why I seem to genuinely struggle when I have doubts and questions, more than other people. I expect things to fit together a certain way, based on how I understand God, and a single loose thread can threaten to unravel everything I believe, all because I place so much weight and trust on my ability to understand. It is sin and idolatry, because what I am really doing is demanding that God’s ways make sense to me. Instead, I should acknowledge my limited mind, and that God is infinitely greater than all the understanding I could accumulate in a thousand lifetimes.