When God Hands Us a Harder Problem

Dear brothers and sisters, when I was with you I couldn’t talk to you as I would to spiritual people.  I had to talk as though you belonged to this world or as though you were infants in the Christian life.  I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food, because you weren’t ready for anything stronger.  — 1 Corinthians 3:1–2 (NLT) 

My grandson came to me recently with a math problem about ratios.  He had handled the earlier ones just fine.  Each was a single problem he could work straight through to an answer.  This one was different.  It was a complex problem whose answer was needed to solve another complex problem, and he could not see a way in.  So, we sat together and went back a step.  We simplified the first problem until it made sense, then used it to unlock the second.  I must admit, I enjoyed it.  In my younger days I was pretty good at math, the kind of kid who could solve most problems in his head.  That worked right up until the problems grew too complex to hold that way.  Then I had to learn what I was now showing him: break it down, go back a step, and build toward the answer. 

Sitting there, I realized how closely that paralleled my own journey of faith.  In the beginning I was excited about how much I knew about God and how much I loved Him.  Then, at a certain point, things got complicated.  God began pressing on parts of my life I wanted to keep control of, and I struggled.  The faith that once fit neatly in my head no longer did.  The only way through was the same lesson I had learned with math.  I had to break it down.  Sometimes it was a sermon that reminded me of God’s love.  Sometimes it was a relationship that challenged me to have a bigger, more forgiving heart.  Sometimes it was feeling God’s grace through a family tie.  Every one of them required me to go back a step before I could move forward. 

This is not unfamiliar ground for people of faith.  The most famous breakdown I can think of is Saul’s conversion.  We first meet him at the edge of Stephen’s story, watching as a faithful man is stoned.  From there Saul moves from opposing the followers of Jesus to actively hunting them down.  He was not a careless man.  He was a devoted Jew who believed he knew exactly who God was, and he acted on it with everything he had.  Then, on the road to Damascus, a light from heaven stopped him cold.  A voice asked why he was persecuting Him, and Saul answered with a question: “Who are you, lord?”  The reply rearranged everything: “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting!”  (Acts 9:5).  We often say this as a sudden conversion, but notice what came next.  The man who thought he understood it all opened his eyes and could not see, and his companions had to lead him by the hand into the city (Acts 9:8).  Saul had to go back a step.  Everything he had built his life on needed to be re-evaluated in light of who Jesus really was. 

Here is what I find encouraging.  When God begins to show us a deeper, more complex picture of who He is, it does not mean we have failed Him, or that everything we believed before was worthless.  More often, He is simply giving us more.  Years later, that same man, now known as Paul, wrote to the believers in Corinth about feeding them milk because they were not yet ready for solid food.  Milk is not a mistake.  It is exactly what nourishes us when we are young in faith.  But growth eventually asks for something stronger, and something stronger usually feels harder before it feels right.  Paul understood that from the inside.  He had spent his life on one understanding of God, and on that road, he was handed something far richer. 

So, if your faith feels more complicated than it used to, maybe that is not a sign you’ve lost your way.  Maybe God has handed you the harder problem because you are ready to learn something new about Him.  Like my grandson with his ratios, we do not have to solve it all at once.  We can go back a step, work the part that is in front of us, and trust that the One who gave us the problem will help us work it through. 

Where has your faith grown more complicated lately, and what might change if you saw it as God giving you more rather than a sign you’ve failed? 

What step back might you need to take in order to move forward? 

My prayer is God meets us where we are, with milk when we need it and something stronger when we are ready.  When our faith feels harder than it used to, keep us from mistaking growth for failure.  Give us the humility to go back a step, and lead us by the hand when we cannot yet see the way.  Amen.