Sometimes we need uncertainty around us to develop the certainty of our faith. Just like it was probably an uncertain situation in our lives that brought us to a relationship with God in the first place, it is also the uncertainty that keeps developing and pruning our personal faith and outlook.
Like it was probably a situation of say a family member passing, going through a hard time in your life, etc. that brought you to God in the first place in a humbling position of submission because you didn't have the certainty or know-how on how to get passed a certain situation that you WERE in. I know it was a time where uncertainty faced me in my Sophomore year of college where I was faced with an unfamiliar situation. My girlfriend had broken up with me and in that season of my life I had put a lot of vulnerability in that relationship and was not met with the same level of vulnerability on her behalf. I left devastated. I didn't know how God was gonna use that situation to speak into it. I cried for about a week, felt a really strong pull to read the Bible, read it, and did the ol' flip-a-rooskie on random books/pages of the Bible for it to 'speak' to me. I perceived God to have spoken to me, flipped it, and closed the book and deemed myself 'cured' after a week of random Scripture reading.
Little did I know that that situation would be the future cornerstone of God leading me to faith in Him as I didn't know how to get through the situation I was in. I didn't have the trust in the current friendships of that time to reach out and talk it out with them nor did I have the certainty of faith to rely upon when I had JUST taken a class called Marxism philosophy that turned my heart and eyes away from the idea that God exists. It's crazy, I had taken that philosophy class, and despite being raised in a Christian home - found myself not believing in God and sitting at a corner of disbelief in God. I had never felt farther from God. So... it just SO happened that God used a specific uncertain situation to sew the seeds of belief when I was sitting at the corner of unbelief in God to bring me to Him in submission.
So, it seems like our faith ALWAYS encompasses this ELEMENT of uncertainty. Like much of what any of us have to speak of God's existence in our lives is stories and ways God planned and provisioned through (similar to this short 30-second story I shared with you), but what we don't have is this tangible certain EVIDENCE that He actually exists.
Good thing Scripture says our faith is the EVIDENCE of things unseen in the book of Hebrews. Thus, we can't actually prove His existence and so God has to sew this certainty of faith in us and this certain deep level of trust and faith in who He says He is... that He is the Great I Am, so when He mobilizes us into greater responsibility or requires a 'higher' level of obedience that we're ready and pruned for it. Which fosters this idea of God allowing uncertainty to hit our lives so the CERTAINTY of a deep TRUST in the Father can be cultivated. This is the area where roots and seeds are laid down and formed.
So, if my faith was cultivated from a time of uncertainty, what's that say about how the Father develops us? Because its in the times of uncertainty where my faith is becoming more RELIANT and submissive to the hand of the Father. If it was uncertainty that sewed the seeds to our faith, its probably uncertainty that keeps us linked and HEDGED 5 feet away from the CROSS because we realize our humble NEED for Him!
Last thing, just because of someone else's lack of certainty or trust in God is shared with/revealed to you some way does not mean we have to lower our expectation and anticipation of God pulling through in our uncertainty. Have we not seen His track record and walked with Him in all those times in uncertain situations seeing how He carried us and walked with us through them. So, our faith doesn't HAVE to be contingent on someone else's lack of faith in the uncertain.
Crazy how faith is sewn (lots of times) in uncertainty, developed in the seasons and valleys of the uncertainty, keeps us coming back to Him continually over uncertainty in the daily outcome, yet consists of the element of UNCERTAINTY. So, if God propels (walking with) me into the 'valley of the shadow of death,' I can accept it and grow/wrestle through it and later on see how much deeper He strengthened my faith and provided deeper fellowship along the way to enjoy with God and the people around me.
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