Regardless of all the life experience and wisdom we may have picked up along the way, we’ll still find ourselves guessing; about our faith, relationships, health, careers, you name it! No amount of life experience will magically remove the need for trial and error or cushion us from our face-in-the-mud moments. It feels unfair at times. After all the hard work it took to get here, we’re still straining our eyes to discern a clear way forward.
I have tried to write this week’s essay at least three times. I have started and stopped a quarter of the way through, burying my head in my hands and wondering what on earth is wrong with me. I do this every week, why can’t I just write? But I’ve got nothing. Seriously. I have nothing but a few scattered thoughts that don’t connect. So I have two options: I can beat myself up about “not knowing” what to write or I give myself permission to keep guessing.
A good friend of mine is going through some pretty significant health issues. She has a lineup of doctor’s appointments, supplements, and advice she’s using to piece together her symptoms to find answers. I’ve been there. Especially in the world of infertility which is a constant game of guessing. With all the knowledge and experience we have at our fingers, guessing feels like a slap in the face when we’re in pain or stuck, in need of answers or direction. But what if there is grace to be found in our guessing? What if trial and error are what form us more than the answers themselves? Perhaps the slow arrival of answers is where wisdom becomes fully formed and grace gets its way with us.
As I continue to read St. Teresa’s Interior Castle, one thing is clear: she is also guessing. Throughout her writing her self-consciousness is apparent. Fear of not making any sense and struggling with jumbled thoughts are her constant lament, and yet she keeps writing and praying that somehow it will all come together eventually. Are we all doing the same? We hesitantly live our stories, hoping it with all come together eventually.
One thing I do know is that God has given us the freedom to guess. If that weren’t so, we’d have a pretty clear Bible with laid-out, step-by-step instructions on how to live. But we don’t. The clearest commandments in the Bible are to love God and love our neighbor. That’s pretty broad and yet, perhaps a grand gesture of grace that we often can’t comprehend. A favorite professor of mine in seminary used to say “God love and do what you want.” For some of us, we’d rather have the clear, step by step to know that we’re getting it right. After all, who likes getting it wrong over and over again?!
But the grace of guessing says we are giving life a chance. We are giving ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, our callings, and our health a chance to be wholly beautiful even in the midst of dismay and disorder. We may not be able to do this life over again but we have plenty of tomorrows to try again. How can that not be grace? But I don’t really know, I’m just guessing.
Here’s a little prayer from Kate Bowler for those to find themselves guessing.
Oh God, I long for understanding, but life is full of unanswered questions.
God, reveal to me what I need to know and for all the rest….show me how to live with so much uncertainty.
“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself.. But I believe that the desire to please you, does in fact please you.…”
— Thomas Merton
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”
— Voltaire
blessed are we who come to You in the discomfort of our doubt,
for we trust that our honest unknowing is a truer and better prayer
than bootstrapping efforts at certainty.
blessed are we, receiving the gift of doubt,
for we trust that it is a doorway, freeing us to become
that we could not otherwise have known.
blessed are we, remembering that You God, hold all things together.
You are the invisible scaffolding that supports us,
the canopy of love that protects us in the present,
the stable pillars, sunk deep into our past,
and the Dove that flies confidently toward the future
bearing for us the peace we could never have attained for ourselves.
blessed are we, settling into the truth that there are things that we can’t know,
settling into the humility that knows this one thing —
that we are of the earth, and You are our God.
notice this day what you do know and trust. thank God for it. and leave the rest.
And when you just need to laugh about guessing, here’s a classic clip from SNL.
I enjoyed how you connected the art of guessing with the practice of not googling in your linked essay. The two sentiments definitely go hand-in-hand. To stay in the uncertainty in today's world almost feels like a failure of sorts by society's standards; yet I have found it immensely satisfying that not only do I not have the answers but I don't always need to be the one to find them either. Things are looking like I should be able to attend WCP this Sunday. Hope to meet you there!
I love and relate so much to this Colette. I encountered the purpose driven life as a young adult and it really captivated me with it's clear dogmatic message, speaking to a part of me that longed to be seen as valuable and important. My struggle finding peace with not knowing is the certainty that is often proclaimed within the church. I think so much is guessing, hoping after weighing up options, making the best choice with our limited knowledge. I love how you reframe all this as the way of grace and wisdom, the place of formation. It is the way of faith, unsettling but freeing us from being experts to be followers of wisdom and wonder.