March 14th

I once was told: “It is better to have people assume you are a fool than to open your mouth and prove it.” Well, when it comes to farming, and I guess things generally related to heavy equipment, I am clearly a fool. Last week’s Pensive Pastor, while it didn’t actually involve any opening of my mouth, declared my folly for me. Apparently, as was quite clear to all the farmers who read it, I don’t know my oral cavity from a hole in the ground. Or, more accurately, I don’t know that what you attach to a tractor to push snow around is called a blade, not a shovel. I stand every so humbly corrected.
With that confession of ignorance out of the way, I will continue on with this week’s Pensive Pastor, knowing full well that what I deem correct is so to the best of my knowledge. My research is as complete as possible, my sources are checked and off I go, knowing full well that someone with more insight or better information might well help me demonstrate my own folly.
It is a risk I take with everything I say. In fact, it’s a risk we all take with everything we say. Whenever we pronounce ourselves experts on a topic there is a chance that someone more well informed that us my have to correct us. Embarrassing as it may be, it’s a plain fact that at times we don’t have our facts straight, despite our best efforts.
As a Pastor, I stick my neck out all the time, because it is my job to study God’s truths on behalf of the congregation. My stipend, what I receive as “pay” is a living allowance given to me by the congregation so that I can focus of Spiritual matters and then share my studies with them. With four years of study for the Ministry, many follow-up courses, and regular reading, research and reflection it is a job for which I am well equipped.
Of course, I am not the ultimate authority on matters of God, faith and the Presbyterian way. There are many experts in the laws and polity of the  Presbyterian Church in Canada and lots of folks have studied faith longer and more intensely than I have. At the same time, with pretty much twenty years of consistent study, I’m not too badly off in terms of understanding.
Still, there is one authority that is not only my superior in every way, but my inspiration. I refer to God, the author and finisher of all creation. In all I do I defer to God’s ultimate genius, knowing full well that I probably prove my folly to him over and over again without even opening my mouth. There is just too much to know for it to be any other way.
It is a truth we all must accept because even though we don’t know it all, we do know enough. God doesn’t leave us ignorant of what we need to know. Through teachers like myself, friends and family who mentor us and our own personal study, God ensures that we know enough about Him and our place in His heart that we don’t have to worry about being foolish in His sight. And even if we do open our mouths and prove ourselves to be fools, God will forgive us. After all, He does know what’s best for us, even we don’t. At least that’s the way I see it.