Whatever we cannot see our way through makes us fearful.  This applies not only to work that is overwhelming, but also to stretches of life beyond which we cannot see.  Problems that seem unresolvable come to us all at times.  The spiritual life seems especially prone to that.  Why?

An example from Zen, a Buddhist form of meditation, may open a way of understanding for us.  In a certain Zen cloister a master gave his students a riddle, a "koan", on which to meditate which had no reasoned solution.  The assignment might be something like: "Listen to the sound of the right hand."  As a student tries for weeks or even years to find a solution, attempting again and again to meditate on this rationally unsolvable assignment, he/she gets into a state of inner despair.  However, one day a new way of knowing beyond understanding opens up. The discovery is accompanied by great joy.  Suddenly all knowledge appears in a new light.  This the Buddhist speaks of as "illumination".

Why have I introduced this example here?   As symbolic image it has helped me understand better why people who are especially earnest about living as disciples of Christ are so often placed before seemingly unresolvable problems which lead into a "no exit" situation.  Does God give believers something similar to a "koan of life" so that they learn to trust God alone without any support and guarantee?  Just as a Zen student must leave the dimensions of reason behind in order to come to a new understanding, so a Christian must let go of the secure ground of human certainty ("The leap of Peter") to learn what faith is.  That is of significant importance for only in living in trusting faith will God become a reality in life.  Here we learn to trust God not only in our thoughts and intentions but in the midst of actual living.

- Look back on your experiences in which you saw yourself facing what appeared to be  unsolvable problems but which later resolved themselves...

- Linger meditating on how, in retrospect, you see previous situations differently than was    possible at the time...

- Try to experience how differently your life appears to God than to yourself and what that   may mean for trusting the leading of God more than your own momentary insight and   understanding. .

- Romans 8:28 (For those who love God everything works for good)
- Lacordaire: "What does the shipwreck mean to you when God is the ocean?"
- Matthew 14:22-33 (The sinking Peter)

In looking ahead to the next hours (or the next weeks) that lie before you, look with your inner eye at what appears dark and opaque and what you would like to push away.  Direct your glance as you direct your binoculars to a specific object and thereby see more than you would with the naked eye.  Proceed with the attitude of a person waiting full of hope endeavoring to see through the darkness the light which is hidden behind - a light you cannot indeed see, but a light in which you believe. "My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning" (Psalm 130:6).