Have a few minutes to spare? If so, enter my classroom at-a-glance and appreciate this teachable moment with me:
So there I was.... teaching the kids in my Bible class about Jesus' forgiving mercy. As I was listing off examples from the top of my head of people in the Bible who Jesus demonstrated his kindness, mercy, and forgiveness to, God quickly brought to mind the woman at the well.
Of course, He would bring the woman at the well to my mind in this moment.
But these are kids, my thoughts said back to the Lord. How in the world are they going to understand that situation? Really, Lord, how am I supposed to set this one up? My mind continued to reel. As the words began coming out of my mouth, I realized (faster than I could stop and think about it) that I was mid-story with no chance of turning back.
I think I explained her as somewhat of a "bad best friend" who "couldn't get along with any husband who lived in her house," so she "kept trying again until she could get it right," or something to that effect. You get the idea. It was.... well, awkward. I was about to tell God this very thing in my mind when a hand shot up.
Thank you, Jesus.
Amidst my fumble-of-words, a kid seemed interested in what I was saying and longed to intercept the conversation. He was full-on engaged, son. Go ahead, child, be my guest. (Let's be real: At this point, I didn't even care which team got the points for this one.)
Not willing to interrupt the chance to have a teachable moment, and more than willing to allow someone else to talk and interrupt the flow of my awkward, kid-version-ized, mini-inpromptu-Bible lesson, I called on the kid in the front row. (Ahem, warning: it just got more awkward from here.)
Student: "I know who the woman at the well was married to."
Me: "Really? The Bible doesn't really give us the names of who she married...."
Student (cutting me off): "But no. I know who she was married to. She was married to Moses AND Noah."
............................... (pause)
...............................................................(longer pause for dramatic effect)
...........(shorten pause so I can say something quick, so the other students don't think I agree and am teaching this to be true... I don't want 115 dinner table conversations to be centered around this...and I don't want to answer the 115 emails as a result.)
As any good teacher would do, I had a moment of silence. I, in fact, allowed everyone to have an unannounced moment of silence. To be honest, we may have had an entire 60-second-moment-of-silence. It may have been the best minute spent in the classroom that day.
During that short-but-long minute's time, I realized we were getting way off-track from the mercy-and-kindness-and-forgiveness-of-Jesus lesson by this point, so I decided to abort ship and end it all with this phrase:
"I know the Bible doesn't specifically tell us the names of the men she married, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't either of those guys."
Student's response: "Well, we don't know... maybe it was."
Me: "Well, whoever she married, God loved and forgave them all. His mercy extends to all, right?"
Student's response: "Yeah, you're right."
Mission accomplished.
I say all that to laugh-in-retrospect and say this: there is a difference between kid theology and child-like faith. Jesus instructs us to have child-like faith, not kid-sized theology.
Kid theology, much like the confusion life's circumstances often hand us, can sometimes be comical. Sometimes.
But oftentimes (if we're being real), confusion is not comical. It's really not. A lot of times, it's just annoying. Deep-seated in wrong thinking. Simply (yet severely) off-base. And resulting in words and actions that are flat-out-wrong.
Life is confusing. It doesn't have to be, but sometimes it can be. It most definitely can be.
It's not a matter of if we will be confused at some point in our lives. It's a matter of when.
It's not a matter of what will confuse or discourage us, but how we chose to handle it.
It's not a matter of if we understand or not, it's a matter of deeply knowing the all-understanding God we serve throughout all of life's understanding and misunderstanding moments.
Confusion: Defined (Rosemary-style)
If I were allowed to pick apart this word "confuse" and define it in my own way, it would look/sound something like this:
The beginning part of this word starts with "con." In English, this word refers to something negative or someone who steals, manipulates, tricks you out of something. (i.e. con artist) Since my brain is consistently in limbo of half-Spanish-translated-English, let's pause on that English meaning for just a moment and pop over to what "con" means in Spanish. It simply means "with." Now before you put on your birthday sombrero and feel fancy enough to order something in a Mexican restaurant in Spanish without looking muy ridiculoso, let's stop. Let's skip back over to English for the second part of the word "confuse."
The last part of the word "confuse" ends with "fuse." We all know what a "fuse" is. And sadly, we know what a "short fuse" is (whether it's in a car, a person, etc.). If you're like me, you've met quite a few people recently who own their short fuse and take up residence within it like it's their full-time job to maintain and pay mortgage payments on it. {I digress.}
With all that Rosemary-made-up definition of the word "confuse" put together, the word in my mind simply holds this truth:
The confusing means/things in life (i.e. the change, the transitions, the things we don't understand, the things we cannot control) have packed with them the ability to come with/to explosive ends.
Furthermore, explosive people or explosive situations (whatever that may look like in your life specifically) simply result from change, transition, misunderstandings, and/or lack of control. To tackle this concept, let's first look at the source of it all.
The Source
I could babble on about how that... "Sometimes confusion comes in a package deal with change or transition that's not within our realm of control. Confusion surprises us. But it isn't always a welcomed surprise, either. Confusion oftentimes doesn't surprise us in a confetti-in-your-parade, all-is-right-in-the-world, walking-on-sunshine-(Woah-Oh!)-and-don't-it-feel-good kind of way. It sneaks in on us and has the capability to severely upset us, more like an-ex-boyfriend-coming-to-your-wedding-uninvited-and-saying-he-still-cares-for-you kind of way. It shocks us. It sets us off-guard.
It frightens us.
It frustrates us.
It confuses us.
When we get confused, we feel powerless and frustration results."
We oftentimes like to blame confusion on the things going on around us. However, I will skip that approach and simply go to what the Bible teaches about confusion. Confusion isn't circumstantial. It's spiritual. Confusion is a direct result of brokenness. Of sin. Of something ill-calibrated, yet calculatedly-off.
1. The Bible tells us that confusion can result from the ongoing condition our very own hearts. We can't trust our hearts (ever) because they deceive us all the time. "The heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it?"
2. The Bible also teaches us that Satan is the mastermind behind and the CEO of deception. The Bible puts it this way: He's roaring about "like a lion, seeking whom He may devour."
Plain and simple, the Bible teaches that the spirit of confusion does not come from God. Therefore, it must come from opposing forces/spirits. Satan. Or our own flesh. (READ: not our circumstances, they're scapegoats to the much larger issue(s) at play here)
Now that we understand the Biblical source of every sort, kind, and mixed-breed of confusion, let's dabble a moment in the solution.
The Solution
1. The Bible teaches us, "Above all, guard your hearts for out of it comes the wellspring of life." Put guards over the fuses and con-fuses you've got burned in your life today by going to the source of your problem. Your heart. Put guards over the short fuses, as evidenced in the lives of those around you, by praying for your enemies, blessing those who curse you, and doing good to those who despitefully use you and persecute you for righteousness' sake.
2. The Bible teaches us, "Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you." To "flee temptation." And to "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you." When things make sense, read your Bible. When things are confusing and don't make sense, read your Bible more.
Handle confusing situations with truth.
Don't fill in the blanks with things you don't know to be true.
In other words, don't have Moses AND Noah marry the woman at the well. Let her remain married/divorced to six (seven?) of the nameless ones. (They'll both write you thank you notes for that later.)
It's ok to have I-can't-fill-in-the-blanks-on-this-one moments with some things in life. Everything doesn't have to make sense in this moment.
When we try to fill-in-the-blanks, the result we get is awkward kid theology.
The only thing Jesus ever commands in this realm is child-like faith.
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