The Strategy of Unbelieving

A lot of people aren't willing to embrace that they have a problem unless they also believe that there's a solution.¹

Think about that statement for a second. Read it again.

I wonder how many times in your life you ignore a problem because you believe there is no way to fix it. You don't believe there is a solution to your problem. It's unbelief. So, you go on living as if there isn't a problem at all.

As strongly as we believe in things, I'm inclined to think we also, just as strongly, unbelieve in things. We muster up all we got to keep on unbelieving. We work hard to ignore the problem. We go to great lengths to mentally, physically, and emotionally avoid the issue. But to what avail? The problem still lies before us.

When I was still driving my old Nissan Sentra I would avoid any weird noise or mechanical clatter coming from the engine. Why? Well, I didn't think there was any easy way to fix the problem. It meant that either (1) I was going to be forking out hundreds of dollars or (2) it was time to "put down" the ole Nissan, if you know what I mean. Therefore I kept my radio up loud and the windows down to drown out any noise coming from under the hood.

That approach was a stressful one. Because as much as I didn't want to embrace the problem, there it stood right in my face demanding me to pay attention.

This is what I like to call the strategy of unbelieving.

Many of us employ this strategy in our spiritual lives too, and we believe that the unbelieving actually works. When in fact, all it does is threaten and disturb our tranquility and hinder our communion with God.²

There is a technique to combat this strategy. Up to this point you probably think that technique is to embrace the problem, admit that is exists, and focus on the problem, problem, problem. But that's only half right. Remember, the reason we don't embrace the problem in the first place is because we don't believe there is a solution.

Geoffrey Chaucer once wrote, "Time heals all wounds."³ He was offering time as a solution. I think he is wrong. Time does not heal all wounds. Christ does.

Until you start believing that Christ has a solution to your problem, you will find yourself stuck in the currents of the strategy of unbelieving. Christ came to deliver and redeem you from that unbelief. There is always a solution, even when you don't deserve it. There is always forgiveness, there is always rescue, there is always grace. With my car, there was a solution. Sure, it was going to cost me something, but there was a solution. Your solution to your problem might cost you something too, but is it worth it? I think it is.

Don't believe there is a solution to your problem? Christ does.

That's employing a different strategy. That's the strategy of redemption.

Do you tend to believe that there is no solution to your problems? What approach are you using these days, the strategy of unbelieving or redemption?

 

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¹ Seth Godin, Sell the Problem, August 25, 2010
² Andrew MacLaren (1826-1910), from sermon 1898, full quote here.
³ Proverbial thought expressed by Chaucer in Troilus and Cressida (ca. 1385)


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