Sometimes I Feel Like I Don't Know

"Sometimes I feel like I don't know,
Sometimes I feel like checking out,
I want to get it wrong,
Can't always be strong,
But love, it won't be long...."

Ultraviolet, from the album Achtung Baby, by U2

Sometimes circumstances, situations and actions (my own and others) combine and great a situation which can only really be described as a dead-end. Situations where, whatever you do, you know that the only possible outcome, even if it is the right and proper outcome, is going to cause pain, hurt and difficulty. And you know that rightly or wrongly, some of that pain and hurt is going to land on your door.

Sometimes you work yourself to the bone, you pour blood, sweat and tears into resolving a situation, you work through the process, you bring others with you, but deep down you know that all you are doing, all you are achieving, is to minimise the pain and hurt that are going to come out of, that nothing you do is going to take that away.

"When you can't see the way out, try looking up!" goes the old saying - but you have. You've prayed, you've sought God's will, you've listened, you've handed things over to him, you're sure you are handling things the way he wants, but at the end of the day, you know that, for someone, somewhere, this is going to hurt.

Maybe this isn't an experience you share, maybe its just me. Maybe its a weakness in my faith, or just something I don't fully understand yet (after all, one of the reasons I write this blog is as a recognition that there are things that are beyond our easy comprehension, that somethings are a mystery we don't and never will fully comprehend, even as we wrestle and struggle with them).

Then again, although it may be presumptuous of me, perhaps in those moments and at those times, perhaps it is through these kind of "no win" scenarios that I can catch a glimpse, just a tiny, insignificant glimpse of how it is for a loving Father to send his only Son to the cross. My hope, my prayer is that I too can pray the prayer "Not my will, Lord, but Yours be done" - and that while I do so I will join with the cry of the church over the ages "Come, Lord Jesus!"