There is an expression that says we never step into the same river twice.
The thought behind it is that the water is always flowing, the rocks and sand are shifting, and the sediment is constantly being stirred. Even if we were to step into the exact same spot, what moves beneath our feet would never be quite the same.
I believe something similar is true of Scripture.
We can read the same verse again and again, only to discover something we hadn’t seen before. The passage hasn’t changed, but the Word is living, just as the water in a river is living and moving. And so, somehow, it can meet us fresh every single time we return to it.
For anyone who knows me or is familiar with my posts, you may know that I believe that, in His sovereignty, God Himself has chosen not to exercise full control over everything that happens on earth. If we believe it is God who deliberately orchestrates the harm that comes into our lives, how can we ever learn to trust Him fully? You can click here to read my post on that.
So when I recently came across John 19:10–11, it caught my attention in a way it hadn’t before:
So Pilate said to Him, “Are You not speaking to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over Me at all, if it had not been given to you from above; for this reason the one who handed Me over to you has the greater sin.”
John 19:10–11
Ooh.
How do we reconcile that with John 10:10?
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10
Is Jesus contradicting Himself?
On the one hand, He draws a clear distinction between the one who steals, kills, and destroys and the One who comes to bring life. Yet on the other, Jesus tells Pilate that he could have no authority at all over Him unless that authority had been given “from above.”
That raises an uncomfortable question: Does God’s permission mean God is responsible for the harm? And if not, what exactly is the difference between permitting something and causing it?
It’s a hard question, but a fair one. And for me, it raises another question that may be even more important:
Am I defining “bad” the same way Jesus does?
How might His perspective differ from mine?
Perhaps this is one of those great mysteries of faith, one of those seeming contradictions that beckons us to trust God precisely because His perspective stretches beyond our own. What looks to us like defeat may not be defeat. What feels like abandonment may not mean we have been abandoned. And the presence of pain does not necessarily mean the absence of God.
I’ve discovered personally that I can’t lower Scripture to the level of my own experience and expect everything to fit neatly inside what I already understand. There are mysteries I have to entrust to Him. And the more I trust Him in those places, the more I find there is still to discover.
Following Jesus does not guarantee that we will avoid pain, opposition, rejection, or disappointment. But it does assure us that none of those things can separate us from the love of God.
The deeper water is not discovering that we will never walk through the valley, but that we will never walk through it alone.
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