Auguries and Destinies

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour from “Auguries of Innocence” by William Blake

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29 NIV

The secret things, I believe, include how sovereignty and free will can exist together and both be true, and the problem of pain and suffering.

I don’t want to sound glib, because I’m not being glib.

I have struggled in my own dark night of the soul. I’ve wrestled with big questions.  

If the flap of a butterfly wing can affect weather oceans away, how do my choices, good and bad, fit into the Great Plan?

What does God’s will mean, and can a human really grasp it?

And the big and aching questions. Can I still believe in God’s goodness after seeing the suffering and death of one dearly loved…who I have no confidence embraced Jesus before breathing her last?

I suppose what it comes down to for me is that I’d rather live into a belief that God is good and incomprehensible, than bad and comprehensible. If he is not what he claims to be, we are of all people most miserable.

I suppose one more thing could be said. If things are not as we believe — if what we believe is, as the character Puddleglum in C.S. Lewis’s “The Silver Chair” says, only a dreamed up world and a play-game, it is also, as he says, a world that licks the “real world hollow.”

I’m also choosing to be, “‘on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it.” Or as Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Only you have the words of life.” (John 6:68 NIV)