Entry # 1: Lessons from a bear

Get it?



A little over two months ago, at senior retreat, our speaker left us something to ponder. "Everything is spiritual." And for some reason, while I was in Washington from July 15th through August 1st, I thought about those three words a lot. I'm not even quite sure what our speaker wanted us to get out of that particular message, but I do think that by focusing on his main point, I was more aware, more attentive to how God was working around me. And he certainly was working while I was in Washington.


It was probably about halfway through my trip when I found The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel in my aunt's living room. I had already read part of The Case for Christ, but this sequel seemed more interesting and relevant to some things that I'd had on my mind for a while.


I've always had a hard time understanding why God allows certain things to happen, and an even harder time trusting God in the midst of those occurences. However, by reading through Strobel's conversation with Peter Kreeft, things became a little more clear, and my weak faith became a little stronger.


Peter Kreeft used the example of a bear and hunter to explain our inability to understand how our finite human minds cannot understand God's infinite mind.

"Imagine a bear in a trap, and a hunter, who out of sympathy, tries to liberate him. He tries to win the bear's confidence, but he can't do it, so he has to shoot the bear full of drugs. The bear, however, thinks this is an attack and that the hunter is trying to kill him. He doesn't realize that this is being done out of compassion.

Then, in order to get the bear out of the trap, the hunter has to push him further into the trap to release the tension on the spring. If the bear were semiconscious at that point, he would be even more convinced that the hunter was his enemy who was out to cause him suffering and pain. But the bear would be wrong. He reaches this incorrect conclusion because he is not a human being. Now, how can anyone be certain that's not an analogy between us and God? I believe God does the same to us sometimes, and we can't comprehend why He does it anymore than the bear can understand the motivations of the hunter. As the bear could have trusted the hunter, so we can trust God."

So, the difference between us human beings and a bear is far less than the difference between us and God. Conversely, the difference between us and God is greater than the difference between us and a bear.

I can't and maybe never will be able to understand everything about God's character and the way He works, and why he allows us human beings to go through certain things, but this is a start of something that drives me to dig deeper (pardon the cliche) and to strengthen my, as of now, pretty weak faith.

And even when I can't understand, I can trust.