
Today I feel overwhelmed by the apparent chaos in the political sphere.
Normally I don’t pay much attention to politics, other than the limited and heavily biased information that I glean from my coworkers, but I recently spent nearly an entire workday watching the live, televised streaming of a hearing before a Senate committee for a Supreme Court Justice nominee, and since then I have read countless headlines and innumerable strings of social media commentary, and I feel afraid.
I don’t know anything about the judicial system, but it appears to me that a man’s future is currently being determined, not by any sort of reasonable process, but by the uninformed opinions of millions of Americans like myself. Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps justice will prevail. I hope so, whatever the truth may be. At the moment, though, my mind and body are faltering beneath the burden of uncertainty.
Probably I am behind the times, and you have been experiencing this oppressive, panicky feeling about our earthly system of government for years. Most likely I’m naive to argue, “Surely there’s a way to know who’s telling the truth. There must be!” All I know is that I need something to be true, absolutely. On my brief jog around the pond tonight, trying to calm my hectic thoughts, I searched for something undeniable — something unchangeable — to which I might cling for solace. Here’s what I came up with:
There is a God. He loves me.
I need something to be true, absolutely.
Those two statements remain true whether I believe them or not. Tomorrow I might change my mind about God’s character, but He would still love me. You might try to tell me God doesn’t exist, but you would be wrong. Some things are really, really true. Lots of other things are undeniably true, too, but those two have imprinted themselves on my heart like a brand. No matter what happens, there is a God, and He loves me.
Psalm 46 says, essentially, the same thing. No matter what terrifying and confusing events surround you, God is with you. He will prevail in the end. He will not let you fall. He’s much more powerful than the natural world. “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (vs 2, NIV). I just have a slightly different way of expressing my confidence in God’s immutable character:
There is a God. He loves me.
We can, in fact, know some things for sure. We don’t need to walk around in a cloud of confusion, wishing for something solid on which to stand, feeling desperate. I simply needed to turn my gaze toward the rock instead of staring at the sand. My heart feels calmer tonight. “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells” (vs 4).
Love,
The Reluctant Bride

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