“You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. In the morning you will say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and in the evening, ‘If only it were morning!’ – because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.” 1 Peter 2 Verse 9
The existence of duality in nature leads inevitably to ‘if only’ situations and their accompanying trials. If only I had said yes instead of no, I would be married with kids and living in the suburb; if only I had been born male instead of female my father would have loved me; if only I had passed mathematics in high school I would have done the course I wanted instead of being stuck in a job I loathe; if only my family were wealthy I wouldn’t struggle to pay my bills; if only I wasn’t an orphan my childhood wouldn’t have been so messed up; if only I knew then what I know now, my life would be vastly different from what it is etc. At various moments in our lives, we are called upon to make a decision no matter how seemingly insignificant that takes us one way instead of another, towards one thing instead of the other.
In a singular world, there is no apparent choice but one path hence ‘if only’ situations can never crop up. Yet in the dual world choice is an illusion created to provide us with the opportunity to take the wrong path in-order to learn from the error. If we were led inexorably towards the true path, we would instinctively rebel against it because of its veracity and our natural opposition to purity as a result of our sinful nature. Because we are inherently flawed, we can be relied upon to reciprocate with flawed decisions, hence choice acts to camouflage and validate the flaws we exhibit. However, when all you have are lemons and you end up with lemonade can you say you exercised choice in the matter? You simply made the best of the hand you were dealt, but I know for certain you wish ‘if only’ you had been given oranges.
If you had enough knowledge before-hand to make the correct decision each time, would you say choice exists? How can you choose if there is only ever one path that can be chosen to avoid making a mistake? Would you intentionally choose the wrong path just so you can say you exercised choice yet end up at a disadvantage to where you intend to end up? If each decision you make is the right one, there would be no such thing as a mistake. The judgment of the rightness of a decision would be based on the non-emergence of ‘if only’ situations yet founded on foreknowledge of the outcome. Hence how would we come to learn? The old maxim ‘we learn from our mistakes’ wouldn’t apply, whatever could have been learnt would be known beforehand.
Can being deprived of learning from your mistakes be described as a great loss? What does learning from our mistakes provide us that foreknowledge does not? Mistakes test our capacity for dealing with failure, disappointment, defeat, hurt, pressure, regret, frustration or loss. As Thomas Edison put it, he discovered 999 ways not to make an electric light bulb. In inventing the light bulb, he also coined his own unique way of dealing with 'so called' failure. With foreknowledge of any situation under heaven, you would avoid having to go through any of the afore-mentioned circumstances. Yet by not being tested how would you know what you are capable of as well as your limits? Without attempting to pick up a heavy object how would you know what impart the exertion will have on your body and muscles?
Even when we realise, we are being tested, we still wish ‘if only’ things were different, yet in this case we are aware why they are different. They are different so that we may learn, not only of the choices that led us to the trials, but to learn the way out of the trial. The door of our entry is different from the door by which we must exit. Our entry has caused our bodies to balloon up full of impurities, we no longer fit through the opening of our entrance. Just as a miner may take twenty tons of ore for milling in-order to extract 200 grams of pure gold; we too must remove the impurities from ourselves that have us heavy laden for we are pure gold. Our choices led us to those trials, but we become painfully aware within the trial that there are no easy choices out of the trial. We must endure the furnace of purification. It was so easy to sin in the Garden of Eden, but the choice that led man to sin, is vastly different from the choice that leads him to redemption and salvation.
During a test your will to succeed drives you on, when your tests knock you down to leave you battered, bruised or burnt and you need a helping hand to keep going, you will find God right beside you. Not to push you down but to extend the limits of your endurance, because at the moment you feel you cannot go any farther or endure any more, He is still right beside you to extend those limits.
Why is it so important to know what we are capable of or to recognize our limits? If we had fore-knowledge of every situation and didn’t therefore as a result endure tests, a moment would one day inevitably arise when we wonder what God is there for, why we should need Him? We would wonder what differences exist between our capabilities and His. But because we have to go through such trials, we will one day have to call on God to extend our limits, to help us through the toughest of times, so that His power is demonstrated for all to see. In such an event no one is left with any doubt of His place in our lives or His power. He is a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or hope for. As St Bernard once put “What would learning do without love? It would puff up. And love without learning? It would go astray.” When we come to realise that it is because of God’s love for us, that we endure what we do, the learning is made that much easier.
At last, we find ourselves wishing ‘if only’ it was easy to locate the exit from this trial. If only it was easy to stop sinning and reside in the presence of God. To this God’s answer is a resounding ‘It is’ that capsizes the ‘if only’ luxury ocean liner we have been cruising in; there is nothing easier. It is harder to live away from home in the company of strangers compared to living in the bosom of your own father. When life is full of song and we are merry, like the prodigal son, we will have an abundance of friends. But when our wealth is gone, when the devil has sucked us dry for all we are worth, we will be left worse off than the pigs in the devil’s backyard. Like the prodigal son, we find ourselves at such times saying ‘if only’ we were at home where the servants eat as well as some masters elsewhere, we would be much better off.
It is good, that the prodigal son had to be humbled in-order that his father would be given the platform to display his unending love. In fact, it is good I said no instead of yes because I would have ended up relying on someone else for my livelihood instead of my father in heaven who supplies all of my needs according to his riches in heaven; it is right I was born female instead of male for my father in heaven knew and loved me before I was even formed in my mother’s womb; it is right that I got the grade I did because I know now that we have different gifts according to the grace given us; it is good that I haven’t yet sampled earthly wealth before I sampled divine wealth for my father in heaven owns the cattle in a thousand hills; though I am an orphan on earth, I will never lose my father in heaven who watches over his word to perform it; if I had known then what I know now, my mind would not have been renewed for now I am a new creation, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a person belonging to God, that I may declare the praises of him who called me out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Now if ever I am led to wonder ‘if only’, I am swift to realize ‘it is’ by God’s grace.