It's a funny paradox that happens when we learn. The more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. After going on the World Race, some people look at me like I have suddenly gained all of the knowledge in the world by traveling to foreign cities, remote villages, and everywhere in between.
But that is far from the truth.
It was not possible for me to experience the depth of culture, history, and life that there was in all of the places we were in one month. Heck, even if I had spent a year in Kathmandu, Nepal, I would still have so much to see and learn. So many things I would never truly understand because of my position in time and space, and the limitations of my own experience, upbringing, gender, race, and religion. For 11 months I got to see just how big the world is, how God is even bigger, and how I am incredibly small in the grand scheme of things.
Of course, I did learn a lot last year. I had many firsts, some that I'm even ashamed to admit. I evangelized for the first time. I negotiated the price for an airport taxi entirely in Spanish for the first time. It was my first time being away from home for more than a semester of college. I saw someone speak in tongues and have it interpreted for the first time. I experienced being a racial minority for the first time.
Every day, I am humbled by my extreme lack of knowledge; knowledge that I can pursue, but never fully achieve. I am severely limited in what I can know by my own humanity. I could spend my entire life traveling the world, reading every book there is to read, researching the depths of unexplored earth and space, and I still would not know everything there is to know. There are still things that are a mystery to humans, and things that will remain a mystery until the end of time. There is just too much to know.
I first started coming to terms with this when I came home from the Race. After learning so much about the Bible, God, people, and the world, I realized how much learning I had left to do, and was excited about the prospect of going to school and studying for the rest of my life. So I did just that. I started taking some online classes on track to pursue a master's in business administration and ministry. I loved the books, the discussions, the projects. I felt like I was being refilled.
Then COVID hit, and this was the catalyst for this humbling season I am now in.
The novel coronavirus took the world by storm, and what characterized this as a global pandemic was simply the lack of knowledge we had about it, and the little we knew was enough to have a reasonable concern.
Suddenly, no one knew anything.
The entire world went into lockdown. Governments had to adapt quickly to an unprecedented situation in the modern world we had grown accustomed to. How does life go on? How do we find meaning and value in the day to day life when we are denied the simple things that used to get us out of bed every morning?
Some people fought the opposite fight. How do I continue to work a job that has now been deemed "essential" and find worth outside of that status? Do I actually feel valued by my employer, my country, and those I am serving when I am asked to continue working despite the supposed risks?
Everything about our modern infrastructure has been called into question as a result. It started with our faith in government, then national security, then the police force, and it seems every day, a new flaw is revealed and called into question. The corruption of politics, racial inequality, police brutality, sex trafficking, and international affairs are just a few of the hot-button topics that have been circulating now that we suddenly have the time to ponder the state of the world.
So what do we do? Some people claim to have answers, but they seem to stand at all sides of the argument, guns drawn, ready to attack the slightest hint of disagreement. Some who have spent years researching and seeking understanding, and some who have created theories for themselves to help cope with the situation.
Every day feels like a battle in more ways than one. A battle for justice, for answers, for hope, companionship, and our own sanity and mental health. We cry out in anger and frustration because we don't know what else to do. It feels like the world is falling apart, and we all just want to do our part to bring it back together, but that hope seems to drift farther and farther away with each news headline we see, and each argument we watch erupt on FaceBook.
What do we do?
It seems far too simplistic to just say "Jesus". Life is more complicated than it was in the Bible. It was a different time back then, and we can't relate scriptures and the wisdom of God to the present time. It is too far removed, and what we are going through now is an unprecedented crisis. We are past trusting God for guidance. We need answers, and we need them now. We don't have time to wait until the "next season" or to just sit and hope we feel the peace of God. That won't help anymore.
At least that's what we think...
We feel hopeless because we are relying on flawed, finite humans to give us the things we need. We feel angry because they are unable to do the things we know need to happen. We feel like God is too far removed from the state of the world to be able to take the action we desperately need, so we turn to what we have in the moment and worship that and hope for change that will never come merely by human hands.
What if I told you the Bible actually has a lot to say about what's going on? What if I told you that God is still here in the midst of this and that He can help us in ways that mere mortals cannot?
Even though we feel like we are foreigners in a strange land right now, things like this have actually happened before. Of course, it was a different time, and the situation was not identical, but there is still a lot of wisdom we can learn from them.
And in almost every single one of them, it comes back to trusting God...
In Exodus, when God felt distant from the Israelites in the desert, they turned to what they had and tried to get what they needed from an idol they made from their own hands. Every attempt to work and complain their way to comfort fell hopelessly short, and they only entered the promised land with Joshua when they surrendered themselves to the will of God, who was with them all along.
The people replied, “We would never abandon the Lord and serve other gods. For the Lord our God is the one who rescued us and our ancestors from slavery in the land of Egypt. He performed mighty miracles before our very eyes. As we traveled through the wilderness among our enemies, he preserved us. It was the Lord who drove out the Amorites and the other nations living here in the land. So we, too, will serve the Lord, for he alone is our God.” - Joshua 24:16-18
Jonah was told to preach to a people ho despised, so he ran from God, but to no avail. Through the most outrageous mode of transportation (the belly of a fish) God carried him to the people of Ninevah to urge them to repent, and when Jonah finally submitted to God's will, despite his own desires, an entire nation was saved from destruction.
When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:
“No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”
When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. - Jonah 3:6-10
In Matthew, Jesus tells His disciples that He will suffer at the hands of the elders in Jerusalem. Peter, with good intentions, tries to say that this couldn't be the will of God. He rebukes Jesus's claims of suffering, hoping for a better way. But Jesus rebukes Peter, knowing that what is comfortable and easy is rarely the will of God. With full trust in God's plan, no matter how horrible and brutal, He knew it was the only way to bring salvation to all of humanity, and He surrendered Himself to death on a cross to give us life.
From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. - Matthew 16:21-24
We don't know everything. We can't know everything. While knowledge is a noble and righteous pursuit, at some point, we have to be willing to lay down our way for the sake of God's will, because no matter how much we do or how much we know, we will never be God. That position has already been taken. So instead of desperately trying to tie together the threads of divine knowledge that dangle from His robe, simply let the warmth of His embrace encircle you and give you peace. Surrender to His love, knowing that faith in God is greater and more fulfilling than any worldly knowledge we could possibly have.
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