I don't know

I don't know.   Probably three of the hardest words for me to say.  Perhaps they are for you as well.  I've had quite a few instances recently where I've had to say them.  I like learning and I like to be able to say I know at least something about a lot of subjects.  However, I've also had to learn that sometimes saying "I don't know," is ok.  I've found it even harder to be ok with "not knowing."

Several years ago, as a youth pastor, I began to wrestle with the questions, "do I believe, what I say I believe" and "If I believe what I say I believe, does how I live my life reflect that?"  I loved wrestling with these questions.  It challenged me.  It made me think.  It caused me to search into the things I believe. The problem was, I've come to places where I can't conclude the same things on various topics that I thought I believed.  I've met people that have challenged my perception and understanding of passages of scripture that I had always thought were so easy to understand.

As I mentioned before, I like black and white.  I like for things to be either yes or no; right or wrong.  I like knowing for certain the way something is or the way something should be.  I like to have answers.

I've come to the conclusion, that I can't have all the answers.  I have to be ok with saying, "I don't know," when it comes to my faith.  In a way, that is what faith is right?  Being able to believe that God knows and we don't have to?

It is a hard place to be for me.  It's hard to live a life where you know you can't have answers; you can't have understanding.  It's hard to say, I don't know.

Perhaps you are in the same boat as me.  It's a hard place to reside, yet I think we have to.  God is bigger and doing bigger things that we can even imagine.