Confident living

“All the persons of faith I know are sinners, doubters, uneven performers. We are secure not because we are sure of ourselves but because we trust that God is sure of us” writes Eugene Peterson in his book “A Long Obedience In the Same Direction”. We live in a world where certainty is often mislabeled as bigotry or arrogance. It is popular, proper and politically correct to be tentative and open, vagueness is in and clarity is out in the postmodern minds. I don’t know if there was ever a generation of people who are not just comfortable but actually embrace, promote and celebrate uncertainty in moral and spiritual matters as this generation.

The other day I was hanging out at a place where some young people (mostly from high school and college) were chatting. I was reading a book, but was distracted by their conversation; I noticed that many of their answers started with “I don’t know”. Not even one person used the phrase “I believe” or “I know”, their entire conversation was filled with “I don’t know”, “I guess” and “maybe”. In fact when one of the guys asked the other person what he had for breakfast that morning, his answer was “….hmmm, I guess I had a bagel”. I was wondering why he was guessing when he could have given an accurate answer if he just spent a minute to remember what he had that morning. Being vague, unclear and uncertain is definitely convenient, but it is also pointless. Sometimes I wonder if we have reached a point where people are just afraid of saying anything with certainty.

I don’t know if there was ever a generation of people who are not just comfortable but actually embrace, promote and celebrate uncertainty in moral and spiritual matters as this generation.

I don’t want to jump into conclusions based on limited information, but I have noticed that many people in this generation seem to believe that it is wrong or arrogant to know something for sure. Admitting our ignorance when we don’t know something is a virtue, but believing that we cannot know anything for sure is a postmodern lie which many of these young people have become victims of. The irony or the contradiction of such thinking is that uncertainty is the only certainty they believe in. I am not an expert in post-modern philosophy, but one of the main foundations of post-modernism is that there is no such thing as objective reality or truth, they believe that we cannot know anything for sure because truth and reality are social constructs therefore are relative.

Admitting our ignorance when we don’t know something is a virtue, but believing that we cannot know anything for sure is a postmodern lie which many of these young people have become victims of. The irony or the contradiction of such thinking is that uncertainty is the only certainty they believe in.

I understand that there are many things in this life that are too complex for human minds to comprehend, since we are not God and will never become God, we will always have things which are beyond our understanding, but that does not mean we have to pretend as if we know nothing and are therefore not responsible for anything in life. In fact it’s our knowledge of life and things that gives us confidence in doing anything. Charles Swindoll in his sermon Absolute assurance says “Confidence has a very practical purpose in life. When we fly we want a pilot who knows how to fly a plane, when we go for a surgery we want a surgeon who knows human body really well, when you send an army into a war you want to send soldiers who know the strategies, who are confident and well trained to use their weapons. When you take your car for a repair, you want to make sure the mechanic knows what he is doing with your car, not someone who is guessing or figuring out the problem by trial and error method.”

The Bible clearly says that we are created with the ability to know. We will never know everything so there is absolutely no room for arrogance or pride, but each of us has the responsibility to know what God has clearly revealed to us. Here are some bible passages that show us the need for confidence in a world full of uncertainties: The apostle Paul says “We are confident of all this…” (2 Cor 3:4), “being confident of this…” (Phil 1:6). The apostle John says “Then you will know…” (John 14:20), “I write these things…so that you may know…” (1 John 5:13). “This is the confidence we have…” (1 John 5:14). Our finiteness and limits should keep us humble, but that should never be used as an excuse to be irresponsible or apathetic. The tragedy of this generation is not that we don’t know certain things, but we are often crippling our youth by brain washing them with the idea that “we cannot know anything for sure”. I am OK when someone genuinely says “I don’t know”, at least there is a chance for this person to know in the future, but when the attitude is “I can’t know” or even worse, “I don’t care”…it’s an intellectual free fall from there.

Pastor Ray Stedman writes “Perhaps the most striking thing about the close of First John is the threefold occurrence of the phrase we know in the last three verses. Verses 18, 19, and 20 of the fifth chapter all begin with those words, we know. That is a phrase that has a bite to it in these days when we are told that we cannot know anything for sure…There is the certainty of relationship that any Christian can declare. “We know that we are of God.” “Well,” someone says, “what smug presumption. Imagine! That’s the trouble with you Christians. You think you’re so much better than everybody else. You think you’re so superior!” No, not superior; just separated! Not better; just blessed — with a blessing that is open to anyone who wants to receive it.” God wants each of us to live our lives here on earth with some certainties, one of which is his love for us and the hope we can have because of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Followers of Christ are not arrogant, they are just confident that they are loved and as the old saying goes, we may not know the future, but we do know the one who holds the future. 

God wants each of us to live our lives here on earth with some certainties, one of which is his love for us and the hope we can have because of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Christians are not arrogant, they are just confident…

– – Author: Rev. Francis Burgula – –