Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, and American wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex once remarked: "You make a choice: continue living your life feeling muddled in this abyss of self-misunderstanding, or you find your identity independent of it. You draw your own box." Proverbs 14:29 reminds us: “Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.”
An abyss of misunderstandings describes a state of pervasive and profound miscommunication, where differing mental models, biases, assumptions, and a lack of shared understanding create deep, potentially unbridgeable deviations from the truth, leading to continuous or escalating misinterpretations of intentions and realities. The "abyss" metaphor highlights the seemingly endless, bottomless nature of such misunderstandings, where every attempt to bridge the gap can reveal another layer of confusion and distance.
"The Box" is considered a metaphor for the confinement of conventional thinking, social norms, and past experiences that can restrict one's perception and approach to life and problem-solving. Living "in the box" means adhering to traditional boundaries, while "thinking outside the box" involves a creative, imaginative or unconventional approach that challenges these constraints. Misunderstanding is a copious and common wrongful perception in life. It is defined as a failure to understand something correctly. Misconception fails in its correct interpretation of given facts or information, and as such, its subsequent decisions may adversely impact a sound reasoning or learning in life. Its abyss may be considered deeper than any immeasurable chasm or void. If one either accidentally or purposefully delves into its invitational pit, the consequences can sometimes be not only disturbing, but disastrous.
Perhaps one of the most controversial or ambiguous theories of some, that appear to be consistently debated, and seldom agreed upon by those in doubt or lacking faith is the actual accuracy of the formation of the world and who created it. Major disagreements on the topic of creation stem from conflicting interpretations of religious texts and the conflict between those accounts and scientific evidence. The core areas of dispute include the timeline and mechanics of creation, the interpretation of the Genesis narrative, and the relationship between faith and scientific discovery.
Creationists and evolutionists differ so greatly in their opinions and reasoning, that the extent of this cosmological argument can sometimes detract, or induce doubt as to the attestation of God. Supposition may hold its rightful place in life to enhance elements of theory, but it is not proof, or fact by itself. Genesis 2:1-9 reminds us: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.
These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up - for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground - then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Christians, in their illimitable faith, retain little doubt that the creation of the universe was performed by God. God is an immeasurable figure with powers greater than anything else possible. He has unlimited faculty and authority over the universe and everything within it. Ephesians 1:15-23 reminds us: “For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.”
Science is a valuable and aidful resource which provides knowledge and learning, but it is not always correct in its infancy. An eventual feasible conclusion is attained only through observation, experimentation, analysis and the general formulation of theories. However, these initial postulations can sometimes be wrong. It is a well-known fact that for many earlier years, the belief of the shape of earth was not always considered to be in its true, and finally assessed conclusion of actually being spherical.
Hypotheses are simply assumptions of feasibility, they cannot be considered conclusive or factual by themselves. They merely aid the explanation of possibility. Isaiah 40:12 reminds us: “Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?”
To draw your own box encapsulates being true to yourself in life. Choices are often based on individual perceptions, whether they be true or not. However, a conception is scientifically regarded as the foundation stone or birth which is considered the starting point of any formulae or idea, it is not the concluding result. Psalm 139:13-16 reminds us: “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” It is a decision that stands alone from the expectations of others and allows for personal preference to be instigated rather than the norm or wishes of others to would otherwise dictate the eventual outcome or belief. Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish scientist once remarked: “Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.”
An abyss of misunderstandings can invoke wrongful judgments in the general possibilities of life. This is how we learn its truth. It is considered a metaphor for an active state of bodily confusion in mind. It needs further reflection, guidance and questions to ascertain or discern an understanding and the realization of its true meaning and intention. Romans 2:1-11 reminds us: “Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.
Do you suppose, O man - you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself - that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.”
Amen.
