The Sounds of Silence: Confusion

I applied my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things. Ecclesiastes 7:25

The need to know “WHY” is at least as old as King Solomon, and life is good when we think we have it all figured out.

Throughout the 2002 sci-fi miniseries, Steven Spielberg Presents Taken, are scattered profound observations about humanity that I wish I’d come up with myself but didn’t! I’m sharing several of them here with the reference “TAKEN.”

We want life to make sense. And then sometimes, it just doesn’t.

There will always be the big topics that we never do completely come to terms with - like suffering and so many tragic things that don’t make sense to anybody. Then there are the “other issues,” the ones others seem to have figured out just fine, yet we can’t; these are the ones that have us screaming in silence.

In her book, 365 Ways to Connect With Your Kids, Charlene Ann Baumbich relates a cute story about a 2-year-old at a fair who, after riding a horse around in a circle, innocently posed one of the profound questions of life:

“Daddy, where did I go?”

Isn’t that what we all want to know?! And just as importantly, we want to know where we’re going next.

But what about the times we have NO IDEA where we’re going?

There are crises we face related to aging, loss and other things over which we have no control. Dreams of innocence are replaced by harsh realities, and “Life” makes us tougher. We like to say wiser and stronger but deep down, don’t we sometimes wish we could turn back time and be as once we were?

Even when we’re right on track, we can go through periods of feeling “off,” as perfectly normal phases leave us momentarily a bit bewildered, disoriented, and not feeling very normal at all.

We become parents and pour so much of ourselves into our children that who we used to be can seem like a lifetime ago. We may experience periods of nostalgia, of missing the carefree person we once were.

Then, there’s the ever-infamous “mid-life crisis” which presumably explains why people are doing just fine and then suddenly and inexplicably “burn out” around age forty and feel desperate to turn back the clock on a life that seems to be speeding by way too quickly.

“Identity” struggles are challenging under any circumstance, but if you’ve ever brought one on yourself, you know those are the worst; I’ve done it too many times to count!

They happen when those decisions we made knowing they’d “come back to bite us” DO - and leave us grasping at an identity we should have held onto but didn’t.

It’s easy to become so impassioned by a career, a relationship, or any number of other things that can be good but shouldn’t define us until it does start to define us, blurring our boundaries as though, somehow, we aren’t quite whole apart from whatever it is with which we’ve become so enamored.

It seems great as long as that career, person, or whatever is giving us all we need (or so we think.)

It’s great until it isn’t.

Because one day, it won’t be. Retirement, financial reverses, break-ups, or endless other factors can cause the illusion to crash around us and us to crash right along with it.

Whatever causes it, it’s a bad day when that base we knew better than to trust but did anyway starts to crumble and life suddenly stops adding up.

“Losing ourselves” is understandable but we have the responsibility of finding ourselves again.

The good news is this: God knows us even when we don’t! When He looks at us, He sees us not for who we used to be or even for what we may be right now but rather in the light of His Son; He sees us as we can become.

Knowing Him helps us as we seek to know ourselves. Looking in the mirror God holds up to us, we see someone who is "fearfully & wonderfully” made. He tells us EXACTLY who we are: CHOSEN. LOVED. REDEEMED. HIS.

Man needs to pray even if God does not need to hear him; God, after all, is not diminished because we have failed to pray. However, we are diminished …

Prayer helps us to find our place … with that sense of significance that comes from recognizing ourselves in God’s love and taking our responsibility for sharing that love … 

Prayer is the right name for what a man does when he seeks the truth about himself …. (From The Joy of Being Human by Eugene Kennedy)

When Christ becomes central to all we are, we not only discover the “identity” that we’re never at peace until we find but also the sense of direction and purpose so essential to getting past all the confusing distractions life throws at us.

The fact that He knows where we are gives us hope (and promise) that we can reach somewhere else.

Whether we missed it in the book of Ecclesiastes or just needed to figure it out for ourselves, we come to the conclusion that King Solomon did.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. Ecclesiastes 12:13 (KJV)

There it is! To know and adore the One Who created us, to see life and other people as He does, and to embrace the idea of being like Him. When all is said and done, that’s everything.

Finding our identity in Christ answers the questions of identity, purpose, and destiny.

It means that we stay in tact despite the vicissitudes of life. At least, you don’t lose yourself in the process.

Until Next time, Kim

Up next - The Sounds of Silence: Rejection