Being comfortable with uncertainty

We want answers. All of us.

Especially teens and young adults.

As they piece life and faith together, working out what they will stand for, it is inevitable that they will hit an intellectual wall.

Things won’t line up.

Previous pithy answers won’t satisfy anymore.

People they respect won’t agree with each other.

When this occurs, what happens next?

In short, they continue to search for answers. As they should.

They wrestle. They argue. They dig in. They Google.

But, for some things, the answer is not like cracking a difficult quadratic equation.

The solution will not be discovered by searching harder or learning more.

Instead, the “answer” is comfort in uncertainty.

With maturity comes a peace of not knowing.

Now, this is not a stick-your-head-in-the-sand ignorance, but it is a humble realisation.

You don’t know it all.

You don’t now.

You never will.

But, you can have peace and security in the middle of this uncertainty.

Why?

Because of what you can know.

You can grow in the knowledge and depth of the goodness, justice, mercy, grace, forgiveness and love of God.

This intimacy with the character of God will help you live with uncertainty.

For, what you don’t know, God knows.

What you don’t understand, God fully understands.

What confuses or frustrates you doesn’t worry God.

With this truth cemented in your mind, living in the midst of uncertainty isn’t as scary.