What Understanding Doesn’t Solve
We think, especially when arguing with loved ones, that if we could just understand them better everything would turn out better.
There inevitably comes a moment when we will hit a wall.
The walls we hit come in various forms and sizes but they have in common a message — one, obviously, no one wants to hear.
No matter how hard you try, you cannot go forward in the same way you have arrived where you are presently.
It doesn’t mean things are hopeless.
That’s your ego talking to you.
And it doesn’t mean you double down and blow up the wall — otherwise you haven’t hit the wall I’m talking about. That wall, I’m pretty sure, is still out there ahead of you.
It does, however, mean things must change. And the only change that is truly in my power and yours to change is within ourselves.
The first available change is attitude — a combination of humility and hope.
That’s because, ultimately, it comes down to a trust-in-God issue.
Nothing else.
No one else.
Anything less is a stubborn cop out.
So, what does this have to do with attempting to understand?
We think, especially when we have hit “the wall” that if we could just understand, everything would be better. The truth of the matter is this is a lie.
I will prove it to you.
Image, you now understand why you have hit the wall. You are still where you are. You still have the problems you have, but now, of course you feel one hundred percent better, because you “understand.” (Not).
So should you not try to understand? Yes and no. Certainly, learn from mistakes and correct them, but the deeper cloudy answers to theoretical questions about life, the universe, etc., are automatically beyond the scope of the human intellect – even with all the artificial intelligence support you or the world of men can muster. We are finite and our capacity to “understand” is finite as well.
So what is the alternative?
Trust, acceptance, peace, and joy because being able to completely understand anything and everything is not our problem. They are burdens that can and should be transferred to one with the capacity to handle them – and where He is, there is the dance.
And back to Job one more time. What helped him recover? Not getting his questions answered but discovering he was living in a story with a much bigger God.
