The word uncertain is defined as not able to be relied on; not known or definite, and uncertainty is the quality or state of being uncertain… Doubt.
We just went through an election, and there is a presumed winner….and yet, for many there is doubt.
Individuals found in the doubt camp are uncertain of the accuracy of the votes counted due to variety of reasons: the possibility of outright deception, the possibility of the abuse of power in changing the cutoff times for acceptance of even legitimate votes, and the possibility of the vote counting software systems used to count the votes, which are all built by fallible human beings, having a ‘bug’ in them that could cause the count to simply be inaccurate and not tied back to the true number of ballots cast, to name a few…
Uncertainly in life is a real thing. You may disagree, but I think I can make a pretty good case for the thesis that there is uncertainty in every aspect of life, and since there is uncertainty, there is also certainty, or truth, that is determinable…, if we’re willing to go to the trouble of searching it out.
A few examples to illustrate uncertainty in every aspect of our lives:
First, Covid-19. Until about 9 months ago, few of us could have conceived of a scenario where a single virus could grow and spread so quickly and effect our world so profoundly.
Second, probably everyone here has, at some point in their lives, had someone they knew die suddenly and unexpectedly. I’ve had a child die of Sudden Infant Syndrome and my oldest brother, died in a helicopter crash, in the process of a rescue mission to save someone else’s life. Having lived through such things, I am keenly aware that each and every one of us is literally but a heartbeat away from death every moment of our lives, which is a sobering thought at best, but also a perfect way to illustrate the point of how uncertainty is an integral part of our lives.
And lastly, even if you have somehow lived to this point without considering the uncertainty of your own life or the life of those near and dear to you, the vast majority of adults here would all have been alive on September 11th 2001, during the terrorist attacks on our country and be aware of the untold thousands of people who were personally impacted by that day. A young woman from my church, Shelly Genovese Calhoun, was barely more than a child herself, just starting adulthood living in New Jersey with a young, handsome and successful husband, and a toddler baby girl, and her husband was one of those who perished in the Twin Tower buildings that horrific day. Since then, Shelly has actually written a book, titled ‘Twice Blessed’ about her experience and the certainty that helped her walk through that terribly uncertain time.
Most everything about the September 11th tragedy created uncertainty: the uncertainty of who had, and had not, made it out alive, whether the bodies of those who didn’t make it out would ever even be recovered, whether life would ever get back to normal – the list goes on. There were those, however, who also pursued certainty: the workers who worked tirelessly to recover bodies, the people who worked to restore order to the area, and those who sought to do what they could to help people and families affected by the tragedy – because while uncertainty exists and will affect us, if we don’t deal with it, it will just drag us all down more and more.
I’ve always heard that the way that counterfeit experts train to recognize currency is not how you might suspect, where they seek to become very knowable about all the counterfeit possibilities out there, but rather, they become experts in the genuine article. By knowing intimately what the real (or true) currency looks like, it’s much easier to spot a fake.
Similarly, it’s my opinion that when we seek to find certainty, what’s causing uncertainty will likewise be much more easily identifiable.
The long-range impact of things like deadly viruses is unpredictable and uncertain. Despite our very best attempts protect ourselves and our country from future terrorist attacks, like 911 (or worse), our ability to do so is also still to be determined…another uncertainty we live with…
And then there’s the whole uncertainty of our next breath…. That is not going away either.
Some would add God to the list of uncertainties…but I not only believe that God exists, I believe that because of His existence, it’s really important for me – any everyone else – to find out more about Him and what’s important to Him. What I’ve come to believe, based on my own experience in the search for certainty (or truth) relative to God, is that such things are knowable…
Like some of the people dealing with the current uncertainty of our recent election process, in the 1990’s a man by the name of Lee Strobel, was very certain of some things in his life. An atheist, and a reporter working for a major news publication in Chicago, he literally set out to prove one of those “certainties” – that Jesus Christ was not who He had claimed to be. Lee’s wife had become a follower of Jesus, and he felt she had been brainwashed so he wanted to rescue her from the brainwashing group and get his old life back to normal, and so he set out to prove that Jesus was not who He claimed to be. He ended up proving just the opposite, however, and wrote a book titled, ‘The Case For Christ’ as a result. He became a Christ follower himself, and has spent the rest of his life since the publishing of the book, in 1998, sharing his faith – the certainty he also came to know – the truth about who Jesus is, and why what we do with Him matters.
In summary, I don’t know who’s ultimately going to be declared the 46th president of the United States, but I’m certain of one thing. Neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden, can save America. They can’t even save themselves, but then neither can you or me. There’s only one person who can do that, and that’s Jesus Christ.