God, in his infiniteness, has everything under control

The following exchange of ideas happened in a church fellowship hall sometime in the 1990s, during a bereavement dinner. As these meals generally go, we had all sat down at tables following the return from the cemetery, where I'd conducted a brief committal service.

Other Person: Would you pass the salt?

Me: Certainly. Here you go.

Other Person: You know, I don't believe any of that stuff you said at the graveyard.

Me: Hm.

Other Person: I used to come to church, you know. But then my dad died, and I stopped coming. I think religion is all a bunch of hokum.

Me: This is good meatloaf. I'm going to get a refill of soda. Want some?

The back-and-forth you just read hasn't happened a lot in my ministry, but it is memorable. An ordained minister is sometimes -- note that I didn't say often -- the target of frustration by those who have experienced disappointments, setbacks, betrayals, dashing of hopes, et al. Once in a while, though, you meet someone who comes to a position of non-theism (or the more politically charged word, atheism) out of a long-considered sense that things just don't add up.

I've also thought about something a lot. Things don't add up for me, either. I don't know why injustice is often met with indifference or why innocent kids are born with birth defects or why terrorists behead people. I decide to go the other direction, though, when the abacus won't generate the arithmetic it should.

Rather than see injustice as evidence that there is no God, I choose to accept that there are things I cannot understand; that God, in his infiniteness, has everything under control, even if it sometimes seems like sheer chaos to me. That's a choice I make. The other person at the long-ago dinner made another choice. Instead of trying to persuade her or argue with her, as the dialogue above attests, I took a road less traveled. I decided she was entitled to her opinion.

But isn't that your job, you might respond? To save the lost? Isn't she lost? Didn't Jesus say, "the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost?" (Luke 19:10/NASB).

This verse concludes the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector and believer whose wealth had blinded him to right living among his people. Zacchaeus, being in the presence of Jesus, found the path back to righteousness, and was no longer lost. Well, I'm not Jesus, and neither are you. I'll point you to another prooftext: "No one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' without the Holy Spirit" (I Corinthians 12:3/NIV).

I didn't argue or try to persuade that woman because it was the wrong moment. She wanted me to hear her -- and I did. If I listen respectfully, I can open up enough space for the Spirit to do its work.

My contention is that faith isn't an intellectual arrival point; it's a gift. I can't argue a person into faith.

My role is to be tolerant enough to allow the Spirit to do its work. If a person is seeking, as Zacchaeus was when he climbed a tree to see Jesus in that much-beloved New Testament story, then the Spirit is working in that moment and I'll be there to encourage faith in the One whose life and work illuminates mine.

Also, dear reader, be careful about using the term "lost." Too often, "lost" is applied when another person doesn't agree with every tenet of dogma that you've accepted.

That word gets bandied about carelessly and betrays a lack of respect. We might be more effective if we waited on the Spirit and praised the meatloaf.