One Thing I Don’t Understand…

Despite the title, there are plenty of things I don’t understand: women, mumbling of teenagers, how Al Gore is taken seriously, and how Kevin Costner still has a career in Hollywood chief among them.

But in context of recent events, the thing I don’t understand is the idea that what we’re going through, and will be going through, is a test of faith.

No, it’s not because we’re super-spiritual or anything like that (whatever that even means), but because I just don’t see the link. And no, I’m not saying that we’re not expecting hard days and pain.

Maybe it’s because our family is already been running counter to much of American culture in so many ways…but the simple fact is that we’re not promised life will be simple, or easy, or worry-free, or whatever happy, unicorn- and rainbow-infested descriptors you might want to use. Or, to quote one of the world’s foremost philosophical motion pictures:

Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something.

So what of the hard days? What of the pain?

In simplified terms, if we’re going to be real: it’s a part of life. Things happen. Rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous…it’s how we respond to it that’s different. Not as a test of faith, but more as a test of who you (or in this case, who *we*) are.

One of the songs from church this morning was an adaptation of the old Irish hymn Be Thou My Vision, and it has these lines in it:

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all.

Whatever befalls. Not the good old American, Osteen-inspired, only-when-things-are-good times. Not just when you’re happy.

Whatever befalls, be it joy, or be it pain…or be it sunshine or rain.

Whatever befalls.

(As an aside, if you’re wondering about the pic used in the post, well…any time Robert Duvall is bewildered, you should be too…)

Despite the title, there are plenty of things I don’t understand: women, mumbling of teenagers, how Al Gore is taken seriously, and how Kevin Costner still has a career in Hollywood chief among them. But in context of recent events, the thing I don’t understand is the idea that what we’re going through, and will…