Unknown

One of my favourite “Christian” jokes is the one about he man who wanted God to save him from the flood. Sitting up a tree with the flood water raging beneath, he prayed and asked God to save him. As he sat in the tree, some people drifted by sitting on a piece of wood. “Jump on,” they shouted. “You can come with is to safety.” “No,” he replied. “God is going to save me!” And he stayed in the tree. Some time later rescuers in a boat found him. “Get in the boat and we’ll take you safety,” they shouted. “No thanks,” he shouted back. “God is going to rescue me!” And he stayed in the tree. A little later a helicopter hovered over him and winched down a rope. “Grab the rope and we’ll fly you to safety. ”No,” he waved back. “God is going to save me!” He drowned. And when he saw God he asked, “Hey God, why didn’t you save me?” God answered, “I tried. I sent a piece of wood, a boat and a helicopter, but you refused to get out of the tree.” Sometimes perhaps we don’t know what help we really need. Last week one of the chaplains responded to a call to visit a patient. Expecting to be confronted with a patient who wanted some kind of spiritual help, he was met with a question: “Does this line come from Shakespeare’s Macbeth?” That’s right, this patient asked to see a chaplain so they could ask if the line from a poem they had was from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth! Well, this patient was lucky because my colleague looked it up on his mobile phone. Perhaps this patient had the rest of life completely sorted and talking about the end of their life really wasn’t important…but perhaps too it reflects that we sometimes don’t know what help we really need. When I was training as a counsellor we learnt about the Johari Window. The Johari Window reflects the truth that there are four states of self awareness. There are things that I don’t know about me and neither do you. There are some things you know about me that I don’t. There are things I know about me that you don’t. And then there are things about me that both you and I know. The point is that there are things about me that I don’t know. And there are things about you that you don’t know. And there are things about us that none of us know. The part that you know about me but I don’t, is called my blind spot: I can’t see it. The part that neither of us know is called the unknown. The truth that I wrestle with is that there things about me that I don’t know and I am not aware of. There really are. Which is a little scary. The good news is that God knows me fully, even to the point of knowing the number of hairs on my head (Luke 12:7). And he loves me because he loves me because he loves me…Perhaps I would do well to admit there are things about me I don’t know, and trust myself to the one who holds me in his great and magnificent love. And perhaps you would do well to do the same.