H/T to Dietrich Bonhoeffer for pointing this one out from God’s viewpoint:
Discipleship is not limited to what you can comprehend – it must transcend all comprehension. Plunge into the deep waters beyond your own comprehension, and I will help you to comprehend even as I do. Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going to the true knowledge. My comprehension transcends yours. Thus Abraham went forth from his father and not knowing whither he went. He trusted himself to my knowledge, and cared not for his own, and thus he took the right road and came to his journey’s end. Behold, that is the way of the cross. You cannot find it yourself, so you must let me lead you as though you were a blind man. Wherefore it is not you, no man, no living creature, but I myself, who instruct you by my word and Spirit in the way you should go. Not the work which you choose, not the suffering you devise, but the road which is clean contrary to all that you choose or contrive or desire – that is the road you must take. To that I call you and in that you must be my disciple…”
It is not about what we choose to comprehend or the sufferings we pick for ourselves. It is the path that God has in place for us and that path can only be walked if we fully depend on God instead of our own comprehension and our own eyesight. What has kept you from plunging into the deep lately? Which sufferings have you avoided in exchange for more comfortable sufferings? How has our quest for comprehension blinded us?
