Love WellSample

Uncertain

I forever have had trouble fitting in with religious people, the type who have certain ways of doing things. The word certain is very important to them because being right is possibly the central value of their life construct.

I was always uncertain about their certainty. I think this made them feel uncomfortable. Uncomfortable religious people who cannot get someone to conform to their way of certainty and submit to their mechanisms of control become insecure religious people.

In their insecurity they dehumanize. They demonstrate their gift for branding. They label and categorize others in an attempt to defend their castle of specificity. Ambiguity is always the enemy.

Questions about faith not fully resolved leave this type of religious person unsettled. Without moral certitude and authority they feel unsafe, exposed, vulnerable, and out of control.

If they do not have an answer for you, which is rare, they will hustle off to their books to find one. They will study and read until they have applied enough logic and reason to maintain a strong position on whatever it is you questioned them about.

All of this carries with it a certain degree of irony, as religious people tend to describe themselves as people of faith. The cornerstone verse used for faith is found in Hebrews, a book in the Bible: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” And as author Jeremy Young observes, “A claim to possess certainty is an illegitimate attempt to deny human limitations and is also, in essence, an attempt to live without faith.”

To truly live by faith, one must be willing to live in the tension of not knowing. Not understanding certain things. Not having all the answers. A person must walk humbly, bearing the mystery of a God who far surpasses any human capacity to fully define Him.