Uncertainty is uncomfortable

Not many of us like uncertainty. There is a certain discomfort to uncertainty. SIDE NOTE: How hard is English? You can’t have ‘uncertainty is discomfortable’ nor ‘the uncomfort of uncertainty’. How wonderful a job do non-native speakers of English do in learning our language? I digress. None of us really like not knowing. And most of the time our efforts, our actions are aimed at removing the uncertainty. What can we do to find out, to understand, to stop feeling anxious about at not having the answer?

In mission training, we were taught about the concept known as ‘ambiguity tolerance’. Basically, being okay with not knowing. In a new culture there is so much you don’t know and so much you miss and so much to learn. But you start from square one as we did when we landed in Cambodia. We were prepped on how to learn language, step by step and be okay with not getting all our answers. Being okay with not knowing.

Now, after 8 years of trying to practice ambiguity tolerance, I’m still learning and still have plenty of room to grow in this regard. As a husband, father, citizen, friend and minister I’m still in a process of learning how to be okay with not knowing. In fact, I need to learn more how to say ‘I don’t know,’ and be okay with that. I’m learning to live with the discomfort of uncertainty. This weeks sermon passage in 1 Peter tests us in this area as we look at suffering and a particularly tricky passage to understand relating to spirits (not alcohol, but the more ghostly kind, well possibly, anyway). We will be seeking to learn how to live without having all the answers we want, but while being given the answers we need.

Rev Craig McCorkindale
Senior Assistant Minister