I was sitting in a chair on my concrete porch watching a caterpillar die.
At least, I think it was dying.
It was hot outside, and there were a few other dead caterpillars scattered around the porch. This one was still alive, but it was rolling and writhing around on the concrete. I figured the heat was roasting the poor thing, so I did what seemed obvious.
I rescued it.
Well, “rescued” may be giving myself too much credit. I found something to pick it up with, carried it a few feet, and laid it down in the grass where it was cooler and shaded.
There. Good deed accomplished.
Except I kept watching it, and it was still writhing around.
That’s when my brain decided that rescuing a caterpillar needed to become a theological crisis.
What if it was already past the point of saving? What if whatever was wrong with it couldn’t be fixed? What if the hot concrete would have killed it quickly, and all I’d accomplished by putting it in the cool grass was prolonging its suffering?
What if the shade was worse?
Oh, good grief.
This is apparently what happens when you spend too much time thinking about God. You can’t even move a caterpillar without stumbling into the problem of suffering.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was something there.
I had absolutely no idea whether I had helped that caterpillar. I knew more than it did, of course. At least I assume I did. I knew the concrete was hot, the grass was cooler, and there was shade nearby. From everything I could see and understand, moving it seemed like the compassionate thing to do.
But I couldn’t see everything.
Maybe it was dying already. Maybe it would recover. Maybe I’d prolonged its suffering or maybe I’d saved its life. For all I knew, I’d dropped it six inches from something that eats caterpillars. I simply didn’t know.
And yet, from the caterpillar’s perspective, if we’re willing to grant our little friend a perspective for the sake of the argument, I might as well have been incomprehensible. One moment it’s roasting on the concrete. The next, some enormous creature reaches down, lifts it into the air, carries it across an impossible distance, and drops it into an entirely different world.
It couldn’t possibly understand what I was doing.
The problem was, I couldn’t completely understand what I was doing either.
I had more information than the caterpillar, but I didn’t have all the information God does.
That’s considerably harder for me to remember when I am the caterpillar on the concrete.
When something hurts, I usually have a pretty good idea what I think God should do about it. I want Him to get me out of it, make it stop, give me the opportunity, save the relationship, heal the person I love, or fix whatever problem has me lying there roasting.
I want God to put me in the shade.
There is nothing wrong with asking Him for that. Jesus Himself, facing the cross, prayed:
“Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
(Luke 22:42)
I’ve read that verse plenty of times, but the caterpillar gave me another way of thinking about it. Jesus asked for what He desired. He didn’t pretend the cup wasn’t terrible or that suffering didn’t hurt. He asked for it to be taken away, but He also submitted His desire to the knowledge and will of the Father.
Not My will, but Yours, be done.
In my considerably less significant caterpillar language, “I know which outcome looks like the shade to me, but only You know whether the shade is actually better.”
That’s a difficult place to “let go and let God.”
Proverbs tells us:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;”
(Proverbs 3:5)
This verse is pivotal. It’s the Scripture I quote on the GOTH Ministry home page. I’ve probably read it a hundred times without really hearing it. Think about what it’s actually asking.
Lean not on your own understanding.
That means admitting something can look obviously better to me and I can still be wrong. Something can look obviously worse and I may not know enough to understand why.
That doesn’t mean suffering is secretly good, nor does it mean every horrible thing that happens was personally arranged by God to teach somebody a lesson. It certainly doesn’t give me permission to walk up to someone lying on the hot concrete of their own life and tell them, “God has you here for a reason.”
I don’t know that.
That’s kind of the point.
There is another danger in taking this idea too far. If I don’t know whether the shade is ultimately better, perhaps I shouldn’t have moved the caterpillar at all. I’m not sure I believe that either.
I saw something suffering and had the ability to help, so I helped. I didn’t need to understand the entire chain of consequences before choosing compassion.
That’s true with people too. I don’t have to know how someone’s story ends before feeding them when they’re hungry, sitting beside them when they’re lonely, visiting them when they’re imprisoned, helping them when they’re hurting, or loving them when they feel unlovable. I don’t have to know whether my act of compassion will fix their life before deciding that compassion is warranted.
I’m not responsible for knowing everything. I’m responsible for what I do with what I know.
So yes, move the caterpillar.
But when I’m the caterpillar, things become harder.
What happens when I’m the one lying on the concrete, praying for God to move me, and He doesn’t? What happens when I can see the shade just a few feet away and cannot understand why God hasn’t picked me up and put me there?
I don’t have a satisfying answer for that.
Maybe that’s another lesson the caterpillar taught me. Sometimes I don’t know is the most faithful answer I have.
I can see the concrete and I can see the shade. I can certainly feel the heat.
But I can’t see what God can.
Faith doesn’t require me to pretend the concrete isn’t hot. It doesn’t require me to call suffering good or to stop asking God for relief.
Maybe faith is trusting Him enough to admit:
I want the shade. But I don’t know what You know.
Nevertheless not my will, but Yours, be done.