| JANUARY 2010 -- Let us look to the New Year to find come certainty in our spiritual journey. When it comes to human progress, certainty has a woeful and sometimes humorous track record. Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland, already pointed out in the 18th century that there is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.
Of course we kept chasing certainty. We value forecasting so highly that we work out elaborate methods to tell us what's going to happen in the economy, or the weather, or a coming election. We invest our leaders with the expectation of perfect certainty and fault them when their predictions miss the mark, which they often do. When very little in life turns out the way we expect, we keep forgetting about how really good that can be. When they tried to invent a gas for refrigeration, they got a slick substance instead, Teflon.
Sometimes you just have to tinker and I just love the tinkering process. This is not chronic indecision, it is making room for God-given creative spirit to work. To fully work in our lives, God needs our inner space that only we can give. Jesus knew the power of uncertainty to create that inner space: Do not worry about... you are to say; for what you are to say will be given you at that time, for it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your Father speaking through you. The paradox is that comfort with uncertainty gives a deep, abiding assurance. |
