Pilgrim Soldier

The expression of Christianity that I found myself growing up in within the Church, suggests that Jesus is the answer to every question, and that in Him all truth is to be found. This is something I fully believe in, yet the problem I subsequently found is that because of this belief many Christians think that we need to be able to answer every question that is asked.

Several years ago now, a good friend was searching for faith in Jesus. He talked and talked with his Christian friends and was probably intellectually superior to all of them. I know he could certainly run rings around me when it came to my arguments to support my views, not saying that I’m that intellectual of course! In the end I turned round and said that it is certainly possible for him to continue to ask questions about Jesus and to try to know all there was to know before committing his life to Jesus, but in the end, he would still have to take a step of faith.

It feels like there are still many people who feel that we have to know everything there is to know about God and Jesus. It feels like they must have an answer for every possible question that can be asked of them about Jesus. It feels like some Christians have got the Lord of Hosts placed firmly into a box that He has to operate from, and cannot operate outside of.

Yet I feel there is a danger in this. As evangelicals we say that we know the truth and act as if only we know the sum of God’s intentions. We say we know the truth and by doing so insist that God always acts within that truth. The reality is that we only know a part of the truth. Yes we know the truth of the Gospel, but all too often we seem to think that it is the total of the truth. For me this is the curse of modernity!

Søren Kierkegaard said:

If God held all truth enclosed in his right hand, and in his left hand the one and only ever-striving drive for truth, even with a corollary of erring forever and ever, and if he were to say to me: Choose! - I would humbly fall down to him at his left hand and say: Father, give! Pure truth is indeed only for you alone!¹

I don’t think that we are ever called to understand the depth of truth that many of us claim that we know. Without the mystery that is God and his ways, there could be no real faith. Sometimes we have to accept that we simply cannot know why some things happen or indeed what will happen, and simply have to trust that God knows.