the perfect tension between feeling and believing is walking
Can I confess and share something really vulnerable and be real for a moment? I’m learning how to lead with I don’t know again, and it’s a really challenging lesson for me this time.
In this perfect moment of my life, I’m walking in the perfect tension between not knowing and trusting God with every major area of my life. As a person designed with an excitement for learning and retaining information, it can be hard for me to walk straight without worrying whenever He tells me to “lead with I don’t know.” Without all of the information, how exactly am I expected to get from here to there? How do I mindfully mind this gap?
A hot tip: MOST of the time when I’m moving by faith, my bold stride is not void of a feeling of fear. MOST of the time, I don’t have the answers to a lot of the questions I’m asking. MOST of the time, this is the part of the journey I like the least. It’s not easy not knowing when your world needs you to know something, anything… but not nothing.
My world has long required me to know. To know answers questions I wouldn’t (probably shouldn’t) be thinking about, and well in advance of arriving to a point to have some clue, inclination, or clear understanding of how to answer them. And the older I became, “I don’t know” became more of an invalid answer.
Something I’ve noticed about myself is that I shutter at having to say, “I don’t know” to questions that carry a tone of “you should.” I end up questioning the validity of my not knowing, sometimes to a point where my gaze becomes fixated ONLY on this idea that I should. Confusion in my midst, I plead with God and cry out for help with what I don’t know — feeling absolutely helpless and forgetting what I do. And it’s in that forgetting that I’m thrown into discord because where God told me, “It’s okay that you don’t know. Trust me; be still and know that I am God,” I’m being asked questions I’m expected to know the answers to.
A hot take: I didn’t realize until very recently (literally two days before writing this) that “I don’t know” is a valid answer when it’s the honest one. It’s neither hot nor cold and it doesn’t make it a yes or no. It’s simply the truth that sets us free to confess our not knowing and lean into peace which can actually give us the answer.
The Spirit has been revealing to me that I’ve found confidence in knowing and my identity in being the one who knows, at the very least, something. That’s my pride — my ego — because that’s who I’ve always been to the people around me, the girl with answers because I’m “smart enough” or “wise enough” to know. God knows that too, so He’s telling and teaching me to submit that and rest in Him. He wants me to put down that mantel and pick up His peace, to find and keep my confidence and identity in the One who IS omniscient and eternal. Especially when I don’t know.
My life coach defined submission as the disconnection from everything we find identity and confidence in that lies outside of God. Everything and anything. To surrender my flesh and give myself as a living sacrifice also is to submit myself. I have to disconnect from who I’ve always been expected to be, surrender my own understanding to the obedience of Christ, and sacrifice myself by dying unto my flesh (pride/ego) and being born again… and again… and again.
Finding myself in another season of “Lead with I don’t know” has been one of submitting, surrendering, and sacrificing again and again and again. Not because I didn’t get the lesson the first time — the enemy tried to convince me that was the case. Not because something is wrong and I’m too slow to learn — the enemy tried to convince me that was the case too. It’s because I’m learning again and again and again what more I have to give in order to receive the peace of God that sustains me in my “I don’t know.”
That peace is a gift of grace that I’m in process of learning. What I’ve learned thus far is that it’s sweet and it’s savoury. It’s filling and sustaining, flavourful and satisfying. What I’ve learned is that when I rest in the Peace in my unknown, I can go more confidently in what I do. I’ve learned that the grace of God is in all of my perceived weaknesses; the great unknowing is one of those weaknesses. I’ve learned that my mind needs a restructuring concerning not knowing. What once served a negative connotation in my life is now being restored as a pillar of strength found in Christ through faith.
I told myself I wouldn’t be long here, but I’m sure we’ve all figured out that I always have a lot to say when I have something to say. Still, I believe I’m reaching a point to close this out, so I’ll keep this last morsel short but sweet:
Dr. Dharius Daniels shared in his Bible detox course that we are supernatural beings, and I’ll never forget that. We walk in the perfect tension of Godliness and humanity, always warring and always pressing and always in the process of “ing". We are so much more like Christ than we can imagine, even I can’t completely understand it. We are supernatural beings, a perfect marriage of the two.
God is showing me that my “I don’t know” isn’t a signpost or marker of ignorance or stupidity but one of His faith and strength. I’m learning that admitting “I don’t know” is one of the most profound things I could ever do. It’s my admittance of being natural. I’m also learning that following that up with “but God…” is one of the most faithful things I could ever do. It’s my revelation and acceptance of being super. “I don’t know, but God…”
And in both confessions there’s peace. In the former, there’s peace in not idolizing myself in a rat race to have all of the answers and all of the wisdom of God. In the latter, there’s peace in trusting in a higher power, the only True, Living God, who actually does. It’s walking in between the perfect tension of feeling and believing. It’s the process of “ing”… a present action denoting an ongoing, active process [towards progress, purpose, and promise].
This is my hot or cold decision: to walk straight anyway. It’s not always easy, and I get frustrated, but I can’t give up even if I try — I’ve tried so many times. I may be feel fear of not knowing but I don’t have to become fear. I can hear fear’s lies about all the things I don’t know, but I don’t have to believe those lies when I know the Truth. “I know what that says, but God says this: [insert scripture].” So in the midst of feeling and believing with my little mustard seed, I can pick up my mat and walk.
I know that when I can walk by faith and not by sight in this perfect tension between what I’m feeling and what I believe, the feeling will pass, my strength will be renewed, and soon I’ll be walking in peace between the Flow of God and God Himself.
And if you choose to take anything from this lesson I’m learning, don’t forget that your season of walking might not look like what you think it does, and that’s okay. God is always doing a new thing to bring you to the new revelation He has for you. And if you don’t know how to walk the way He is telling you to (that’s me, currently) you can trust in His grace which is sufficient, and the Holy Spirit will help you. Just remember to praise, pray, and persist when you seek Him first.
Oh, how much sweeter a way to learn and lean into God than by accepting the unknown and choosing to walk with Him forward. - Jazzmine Bustamante
