"We Understand in Part"

Yesterday, our dog, Butterball was neutered. It was funny and some what scary to hear Anna try to figure out exactly what was being done to him. Before his surgery, I over heard her comforting Butterball with these words, "Butterball, this is a big day for you ("If only Butterball knew how big of a day it was," I thought.) You are going to have surgery. They are going to cut you so they can take something out. I don't know what they are going to take out, but it really needs to come out so they can fix you. You want to be fixed don't you? It will be OK."

Then she turned to me and I thought, "O, Lord, please don't let her ask me what I think she is going to ask me."

God denied my prayer.

"Daddy," she asked, "What does Butterball need fixed?" I replied, "Sweetie, sometimes we just need certain things fixed and that is what Butterball needs."

Finally, God came through for me and she was satisfied with my answer.

As adults it is hard for us to see that next to an all-knowing God, we seem like kids trying to figure out life. We try to make sense of what does not make sense in this life. But the Bible urges us to get honest with ourselves about the reality that this side of heaven we can only see in part.

I Corinthians 13 explains: "8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

As much as we want to understand all things here and now, the Bible asks us to acknowledge that we can't...we won't. Can I accept that? Can you? Can I live in the tension of trusting God's love while not yet understanding his ways?