“I took a test in Existentialism. I left all the answers blank and got 100.” ~ Woody Allen
When I was an instructor at a local Catholic high school, my first year I had five sophomore classes and one freshmen class. Since I did not want to memorize two final exam keys, and since my freshmen were the top of the class and I wanted to see how they would react, I had a “normal” final exam for the sophomores. The freshman final exam, however, had a different twist. All the multiple choice were “A” and all the True and False were True. You can well imagine the consternation on the students’ faces. While they knew that their answers were correct, they could not tolerate all “A” and all True and many went back and changed grades to make it look more like a normal spread.
We do not like ambiguity. We do not like when things do not “fit” into predictable parameters. We do not like the unknown. Everything needs to be nice and tidy and predictable if we are to feel at our best.
Life is not that way, though. It is not always tidy. It is not always clean. It is not always predictable. Sometimes, it is downright messy.
We often think that God cannot be found in the messy, that He can only be found in the neat and tidy areas of life. However, God is all around. He is in everything. In the dark, noisy, messy areas of life, God can be found waiting for us to find Him and to allow Him to bring us out of the mess into something more manageable.
How is your Lent journey coming along? Is it still neat and predictable or has it become messy and a bit tarnished? In either venue, God is there. If your Lenten journey has taken a sharp decline, look for God and ask Him to help you rejuvenate your Lent so that you may get more out of it.
Do not mind the neat or the mess. Instead, look for the Lord. He is present in everything.
FAITH ACTION: If you are too disturbed by questions unanswered, ask God to calm your soul so that you may take another, deeper, look at life all around you and, in the process, find Him.