Elephant in the Room

There were four blind men wandering in the jungle.  They came upon an elephant.  The first blind man ran into the side of the elephant and pronounced, "This must be a wall because it is hard and flat."  The second man grabbed the elephant's tail and said, "This must be a vine because I can swing it."  The third blind man felt the elephant's trunk and said, "This must be a snake."  And the fourth blind man felt one of the elephant's legs and remarked, "This must be a tree trunk because it is round and immovable."  Were any of them right?

No, none of them were right because none of them could comprehend the entire animal.  Each had limited information and presumptuously made hasty and false judgement.  Their conclusions seemed right at the time, given the experience and information that each had, but each was only a small piece of a very large beast that they were critiquing.

Likewise, there are many situations in life that we cannot understand.  Many circumstances that appear to be one way when they are in reality a completely different animal.  We may come upon an obstacle in our path and have no idea how to identify it, how to interpret it, how to understand it, or how to respond to it.  We grasp for what little understanding we can and try to reconcile it with our world view or compartmentalize it somewhere that it seems to fit neatly and tidily and tuck it away.

Most of the time we may only be privy to a tiny bit of information (and false information at that), and as we all know, a tiny bit of information can be a dangerous thing.  I've heard it said many times over the last few years that perception is reality ... but it's not.  Were any of the four blind men right?

I say this, because there are many out there  wrestling over recent decisions made in my life.  Many are struggling with questions about why and how, fumbling with small bits of information and trying to make sense of it all.  Depending on which angle you're coming from, you may see a completely different animal that the man beside you.  It's not going to make sense to you, and it doesn't have to.  No one is going to be able to comprehend what happened, what truly went wrong. 

It's an elephant in the dark, and no blind man can assess it correctly.  Only God knows what happened, and only God is worthy to stand in judgement.