When I was at school, I learned about two dimensional and three dimensional shapes. I always liked two dimensional shapes (squares, rectangles, circles etc.) more than their three dimensional counterparts (cubes, cuboids and spheres) because they were easier for me to visualise when I was counting corners and faces! We can be equally simplistic in our understanding of the faith, failing to appreciate complexity or to embrace mystery. When we are being childish, we tend to see everything in black and white and fail to understand there can be shades of grey (or even colours!) We want God to be predictable and tame and rebel against the fact that His judgments are unsearchable and His paths beyond tracing out! (Rom 11:33)
For us to grow, we have to accept that there are questions we are not skilled to understand (let alone answer!) If we fail to appreciate the complexity of life and treat serious problems as though they are inconsequential, the consequences will be devastating. Jeremiah warned against those ‘who dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious.’ (Jer 6:14) We cannot simply count our progress on the Christian way by the number of years we have been walking on it. Have we really learned the lessons God wants us to learn or are we simply going round in circles? For us to grow, we have to recognise and understand the depth of our desire for independence and the fact that sin is deeply embedded in our natures. Christian discipleship is totally radical, involving daily dying. (Luke 9:23)
Learning to hold truth in tension with not knowing requires great skill, rather like a juggler. We have to be content at times to simply leave our questions with God and embrace the mystery.
‘When the Father long to show
The love He wanted us to know
He sent His only Son and so
Became a holy embryo.
That is the Mystery
More than you can see
Give up on your pondering
And fall down on your knees
A fiction as fantastic and wild
A mother made by her own child
A hopeless babe who cried
Was God Incarnate and man deified
Because the fall did devastate
Creator must now recreate
So to take our sin
Was made like us so we could be like him.’ (Michael Card, ‘To The Mystery’)