My pastor is often saying that he is like an unfinished house. Out of context, it may sound a little weird, but it deserves to be looked at with more depth. To better understand, it is necessary to visualize the image he uses and clarify a few things. This is certainly a quite seldom phenomenon in some Western countries, but in my country of origin, Côte d’Ivoire, constructions are likely to stop and remain interrupted for years and even in the middle of the city. It is already very particular in itself but what is even more surprising is that in most cases the work resumes after a relatively long time and as if nothing ever happened, once the necessary funds have been raised, the initial project redesigned, or even once the ownership of the land has been « returned » to its true owner.
Once these few prerequisites are established, I think it is already a little easier to grasp this idea of an unfinished house. Indeed, the concept showcased by my spiritual father with this image, and with which I agree myself, is the fact that whatever appearances, no matter how long it takes, what we are called to, God’s plan for each of us will come to pass. Automatically, a whole bunch of questions, even criticisms, rise together like the shields of a Roman legion in front of the barbaric invasion that this concept represents for some people.
« Fate? But what is fate and if there is any, what about our free will?”, or, « If there is a god, and he lets so many tragedies happen on Earth, why hoping in his plan without even knowing if it is good or bad for me? », and even, “That is where all the problems of our society lie! Preference for passivity and alienation of our very real life to an imaginary god, instead of perseverance and rational thought to make things happen”. Maybe none of these sentences crossed your mind but believe me this is the case for many others: I have heard them often enough to confirm this to you.
The first thing I can say while facing such questioning is that once we put aside the idea of an almighty God who loves us above all, it is impossible to understand what I am talking about. It is like two people striking up a conversation in different languages, without one being able to speak the other’s own. In the present case, this language is the language of love, the one that is spoken throughout the Bible, in its darkest passages as its most enlightened, in its most boring chapters as its most thrilling ones. I can always be told that it is easy and usual for Christians to sweep away the question of the existence of our God by this kind of condition. For my part I just consider that this is another issue to which I am not the most qualified to answer and for which I consider having the chance that faith allows me to answer it, perhaps not rationally yet to answer it anyway. In the present days some have chosen to do it rationally, or at least to try, just as many others have done it before. Blaise Pascal, in the 17th century, proposed with his Wager an interesting reflection, based on a probabilistic approach, even related to the gambling register, which allows anyone to get an idea of what one loses and what one gains to believe or not to believe. Indeed, quite plainly, and perhaps even a bit too much, Pascal tried to show that we all have an interest in believing in God, whether God exists or not. For him, if God does not exist, the believer and the non-believer draw. However, if God exists, the believer is victorious because he accesses paradise for eternity, while the non-believer as for him loses because he is excluded from it, also for eternity. Simple but effective, and very questionable. But let’s go back to the main topic, because my idea was precisely not to get involved in that issue, but only to specify that others have done it, in case you are interested.
Indeed, as for me, I rather accepted to give in, without any rational proof or scientific guaranty and despite my rather formal professional background and personality, to this God who according to his word has always loved me and that even before I came into this world. People often speak about a leap of faith; I would rather call it a love story. Even though it is comparable in some aspects, I don’t think of it much as a romance but rather as a filial love, this for different reasons that we can mainly find in the Bible. Indeed, there we can read a definition of faith that is both precise and disconcerting: « Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see ». For a long time, those few words disturbed me, blocked me, even lost me, yet it is something altogether quite simple, and it is still in the same book, a few pages before, that Jesus gives one of the most important clues that allows to unravel the mystery of this sentence. « Let the little children come unto me, and do not prevent them from doing so; for the kingdom of God is for those who are like them. I tell you in truth, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a small child will not enter it, » he firmly said to his disciples. It is when we finally accept, to return to this infant state of trust, dependence and even vulnerability that we can embrace all the meaning of this definition and at the same time begin the wonderful journey that God proposes us to do with him. The one through which he actually makes us stronger, less dependent on the things of this world, and ever more assured of his benevolent presence.
It is no longer a question of the absolute importance of our choices, our desires, our will, but of something greater – and much more beautiful.
Nevertheless, a journey is maybe not the right name because journey means a point of origin and a destination, while here both the point of origin and the destination are the same: God. It is more about a project in fact, the project of a lifetime, even a construction project. A construction where the work, the building, is each of us. The client, the original contracting authority and the one who will receive the finished project, is God. The general contractor, who carries out this project, is still God. Far from being at the center of this endeavor, we are only its material, which may seem somewhat simplistic and frustrating at first. It is no longer a question of the absolute importance of our choices, our desires, our will, but of something greater – and much more beautiful. Yes, when we understand that it is indeed God who is at the center, both for his greatest glory but also for our greatest happiness, we enter into all the power and beauty of this simple idea proposed by my pastor, that of a house under construction that will inevitably be completed to become a perfect, unique and priceless home; even if in the present moment it is far from resembling it, even if the obstacles and circumstances sometimes play all together against its realization. Once again, the key to this project, its starting point, is this love story, between a child, the one who can be found in each of us, and a Father, who has been waiting so long for us to let him build us up, to let him be with us, to let him love us.
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