When You're Squinting Through The Fog

Twenty years ago, world chess champion and master Gary Kasparov lost a game of chess to IBM's Deep Blue computer.  He would go on to win the match, but the writing was on the wall.  In a rematch fifteen months later, Deeper Blue, IBM's improvement on Deep Blue caused Kasparov to quit in the middle of the match out of frustration.  

''I'm a human being," Kasparov remarked afterward, "When I see something that is well beyond my understanding, I'm afraid."

Human beings have been frightened by unknowing since the dawn of time, but I think now more than ever our unknowing is causing some serious issues both within us and the world around us.  

Despite all of the knowledge at our fingertips, despite all of the connectedness that we experience through the Internet and social media, we seem more divided, more confused, more afraid than ever before.  

It's hard to know what comes next, and to trust that it's all going to be okay--especially when there is so much evidence to the contrary.  But for those of us who follow Jesus, there's hope in the midst of the unknowing.  

The Apostle Paul wrote the following bit of inspired wisdom almost two thousand years ago: 

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us! 
(1 Cor 13:12)

Writing about our inability to see exactly what God is up to in the world around us, theologian Paul Tillich asserted the following bit of wisdom: "Here and there in the world and now and then in ourselves is a New Creation."  

It doesn't sound all that exciting to say things like "here and there," or "now and then" when we're talking about hope. But sometimes all it takes is a glimpse of the world as it should be to keep us moving forward, stumbling after Jesus. 

May you have eyes to see the glimpses of God's glory all around you today--even in the hidden and forgotten places of the world.  May you have ears to hear the whispers of the Spirit, reminding you that you are beloved, and to not be afraid.  May you have a heart ready to be transformed and made into a New Creation.  

And may the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you now and always. Amen.