Reliability

Photo Credit Ryan Roth Klinck

By Ryan Roth Klinck

They took him and threw him into a pit.
Genesis 37:24a
 

“He is around thirty pounds, with shaggy gray hair, a spotted tongue, his name is Barnaby, and I have had him for about fifteen years,” I say into the phone. “Yep, we definitely have your dog,” says the other person on the other end of the line. 

“How in the world did this happen?” I ask myself over and over again, as I rush to pick up my dog. “He has always been so reliable. He never runs off, especially when he is right beside me.” Yet, he had. Barnaby had somehow managed to leave my side while I read a book, walk across a field, cross six lanes of traffic, and end up at a Shell station down the road; all in less than ten minutes. 

What happens when that thing or person in your life that has been so reliable, for so long, does something unexpected? What happens when something unexplainable breaks the pattern that you are accustomed to? What happens when reliability meets the bold adventure of mystery?

Typically, we throw up our hands and say, “What in the heck!?” 

We do not like it when what has been reliable changes course. We really do not like it when it feels like God changes course. 

Many of us find solace and encounter comfort in God’s reliability. People will commonly say, “God is faithful.” Pastors often preach that “God loves you. God will never abandon you.” Scripture and theology help us to consider God’s eternal nature. And the occasional cranky uncle will remind us that “The only certainties in life are God, death, and taxes.”
Yet, when we encounter seasons of dryness, where it feels like God does not show up, we are left wandering and wondering, “What in the heck God, I thought you were this eternal, faithful presence? Is it me? Is it something I did? Can I trust you? Are you really even there? Am I making this up? Where are you now!?”

“Where are you now” is a powerful question. As we move deeper into the Lenten season, let us not be afraid to ask God this question, because through the practice of asking, we acknowledge that we are seeking the great reliable mystery of God. God is not only reliable when we are aware of God’s presence; God is also reliably mysterious. Just when we think we have God figured out, we are invited deeper into the mystery, where we can ask, “Where are you now?” When we ask this question, we are holding our end of the bargain of reliability, because we are choosing to believe that God will find us in the mystery.