As the end of a pregnancy draws near, there is usually a sense of impatience and uncertainty. When will labour begin? For the first-time mother, there is always the question ‘How will I know when I’m in labour?’, to which Mums tend to say, ‘Oh, you’ll know!’’ which, whilst true, is not particularly helpful to the pregnant mum-to-be! Plans have to be tentative; everything is hedged about with the notion ‘depending on the baby’! Some babies decide to make their arrival early, when parents are still not prepared; others don’t seem in any hurry and the due date passes with no action, leaving mum-to-be waddling around feeling more and more unattractive.
I can imagine Mary and Joseph setting out for this requisite journey to Bethlehem with a lot of apprehension and uncertainty. What if Mary went into labour en route?! Why on earth did the Romans have to issue their edict at this particular time? It would have been so much easier to stay at home! There were no online censuses then, alas!
Uncertainty is a particularly unnerving emotion. It leaves us feeling churned up, insecure, fearful and anxious. Yet, as Dan Millman comments, ‘faith means living with uncertainty.’ We are called to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7), which means we’re never going to be entirely free from uncertainty.
What God does offer us, however, is another paradox: secure uncertainty. We may not know what to do or what is going to happen, but we do know He is with us (Heb 13:5). When we don’t know what to do, we can fix our eyes on Him (2 Chron 20:12, Heb 3:1, Heb 12:1-2). God doesn’t always answer all our questions, but He does promise to be at our side as we walk down the paths that seem narrow, twisted and dark, shedding enough light to walk by. That gives us confidence to keep going.