knowing by not understanding

I am feeling super funky today.  I have a compulsion to get this out.  Our society has elevated the individual intellect to deity.  We worship our own understanding.  There is a pervading belief that each of us DESERVES full understanding of all things in our world, and also all the workings of God and Christ.  If we don't understand something that has happened to us or to others, if we don't agree with it, we feel we have a right to either NOT BELIEVE it, or be mad at God for it.  This makes me so sad.  This can be said for natural disasters, scripture, religions, religious beliefs, science, pretty much anything.  WE DON'T DESERVE ANYTHING, let alone a full understanding of how God works throughout the universe.

We don't deserve to a nice house.  We don't deserve a perfect marriage.  We don't deserve to understand the mysteries of the universe, and we don't.  Not a single one of us DESERVES, or is ENTITLED to anything except a relationship with Christ.  Most people, during this time in history, are rejecting that single thing we are all entitled to because they aren't getting their way in some aspect of their natural life.  Life is hard.  God doesn't promise to protect us from harm or pain or suffering.  God simply says that through Jesus we will be able to find JOY IN OUR SUFFERING.  Heck look at Job.  That poor fella lost EVERYTHING and remained faithful.  He is our model for human suffering.  He didn't know why he was suffering he had faith that in the end God has his back. We mistake our own understanding of our physical world, and our understanding of Christ as "the truth".  When in fact that is a lie, and we will fail in faith EVERY time if we rely on our own understanding.  There is one truth, and we can't know the truth with our intellect at all.

Intellect and the individual.  WE CANNOT KNOW GOD WITH OUR INTELLECT.  We cannot find him by dissecting the scriptures.  We will not know Christ, no matter how many times we read the bible,  if we rely on our own understandings (this would lead to a gazilion truths because we all have different physical experiences... sound familiar).  We can ONLY know him in our soul through faith. St. John of the cross talks about how we cannot understand God or Christ or the Church (of course he is speaking of the Catholic Church, but bodes for all religions) with our intellect and earthly knowledge, because Christ and the Church are of the divine, the supernatural.  Those who try to use their own intellect to understand these things will only become frustrated at best, and faithless at worst, "The intellect knows only in the natural way, that is, by means of the senses.  If one is to know in this natural way, the phantasms and species of objects will have to be PRESENT either in themselves or in their likenessess; otherwise one will be incapable of KNOWING NATURALLY."  So to try to know Christ through our intellect will be fruitless.  He even mentions that it can cause depression because the soul is longing for union with Christ and is unable to attain it.  

FAITH, not in our knowing, but in Christ's knowing and our own NOT knowing.  Faith means accepting the truth without understanding it.  It requires humility to do that.  In a culture that has taught us that we deserve to understand before we accept, this process is painful and can be VERY frustrating.  Reading Sirach 3:20-24 followed directly by Matthew 7:21-23, and then Colossians 3: 5-21 is a good starting point, for understand how being a "true disciple" means dying to our own understanding.  Ascent of Mount Carmel and Dark Night of the Soul by St. John of the Cross are VERY illuminating as to these facts.  We can only "know" and "understand" Christ when we cease to rely on our senses and intellect.  We must die to the world, and all it has taught us and then humbly in FULL faith present ourselves to the scripture before we can understand it.  We must enter the dark night of the soul before we can be fully in the light.  Once we enter into the light we will find true JOY, regardless of what is happening in the physical world.  God, Christ are all JOY, and so we know a true disciple by their JOY.  

So many people now are unhappy, and joyless.  Christian and non-Christian alike.  Again, life is hard and this is understandable.  However, once we understand Christ in our soul we will have ETERNAL joy.  Our society has ingrained in us that we can only understand with our intellect.  We cannot understand Christ with our intellect, since we cannot sense him through our bodies, but only through our souls.  If you find that you are joyless for a long period of time, I suggest surrendering to what you do not understand, and accept that the truth of Christ is NOT meant to be understood by your big human brain, but to be felt in your soul's heart.  He's in there.  He's talking to you, but only in the silence can you hear him.  He wants to give you the gift of Joy.

**DISCLAIMER:  Supernatural joy is different from earthly joy.  Job wasn't dancing a jig necessarily, but he had peace of mind which lends itself to gratitude, acceptance, and joy.  The meaning of this word in this context is... supernatural, and I cannot explain to you what it "feels" like to the senses.  It is simply that when I am sad, I am at peace and this brings me joy.