How are your certainty levels?
by Neville Grieger
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‘How can I be sure of this?’ (Luke 1:18).
In the deep distant past, I can vaguely recall trying to understand Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. I am quite sure that I never really understood it, other than it was something about not really being able to be certain about what was going on! That rather poor, lay-person summary of quantum mechanics, would reflect that it is perhaps not surprising that I rather ingloriously bowed out of university physics quite early in my academic studies!
On the other side of the certainty ledger, multiple references have been made, dating back at least two centuries, to the two things in life that are certain: death and taxes. Many contexts have added additional certainties to those two. In education, we built on the saying by adding a third: change. Change usually encompasses a degree of risk-taking. For organisations to stay at the forefront in a rapidly changing world, the greatest risk is to take no risk at all. With risk comes uncertainty. How can we be sure that the proposed change will lead to improvement and efficiency in the way that we do things? Or the bottom line, in the case of education, better outcomes for students?
But I have digressed slightly. One can’t help feeling a touch of sympathy for Zechariah in his extraordinary conversation with an angel who was trying to tell him that he and his ageing wife Elizabeth would give birth to a son. Zechariah wanted to know how he could be certain that this was true?
Centuries later, how are our certainty levels? Do we always reflect high levels of certainty in our Christian belief? As I mentioned in a previous devotion, we can have all the certainty in the world through the profound words of Jesus from the cross: ‘It is finished!’
Lord Jesus, strengthen our faith and help us to eliminate any doubts in our belief that you are the risen Lord. Move us into action to spread the good news, and help us respond with love and gratitude to reach out to anyone in need who crosses our path. Amen.
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