Without a Compass

Making decisions in a crisis is like waking up in a room you’ve never been in before, with all the lights off, trying to find your way out without so much as a flashlight on your phone. You lose all sense of direction. You don’t know who to ask for help. You don’t know what to even ask for. Sometimes you don’t even know to ask at all. You’re just lost, spiraling, desperate for a hand to hold but not sure who you can trust. There is nothing more terrifying than needing to make a decision and not knowing how to do it, much less what to decide. But it isn’t hopeless. We aren’t doomed to navigate traumatic events without a compass.

Suffering of any kind can cause both a practical crisis and a spiritual crisis. In the practical, you have to decide how you’re going to respond to your situation and how it affects your day-to-day life. What will you do about your living situation, your relationships, your ability to bring an income to your family? There are a million details that are unearthed when your world is turned upside down, and you have to try to navigate these complexities with a sound mind, even when your world is spinning off its axis.

In the spiritual, you have to decide how you’re going to respond to your suffering and how it will inform your faith and your worldview. In the midst of crisis, you’re confronted with your view of God, suffering, the Church, and your very Salvation. Pain has a way of confronting your theology.

The book of Proverbs is full of verses that call for us to seek Wisdom and hold on to it. Wisdom is often personified as a woman (a point that I lovingly make to my husband, lest he question my decision-making abilities), and we are invited to pursue Wisdom, hold on to her, not abandon her, and trust that she will guide us well.

Proverbs 4:6 says that if you love Wisdom, “she will guard you.” Proverbs 8:12 says that Wisdom “share[s] a home with shrewdness and ha[s] knowledge and discretion” (CSB).

Throughout Scripture, we see that Wisdom is readily available and accessible to us if only we ask. Sometimes Wisdom is gained through the very experiences we need Wisdom to navigate. The Lord’s Wisdom will guide us, even when we’re without our normal navigation systems.

Theology is studied in textbooks, but it’s formed in deep valleys of pain and suffering. We can quote doctrines and creeds, but it’s in the moments when that theology has a heartbeat and a name that we’re shown what we truly believe.