The Challenge of “Either/Or”

I don’t know about you but I love “either or” thinking.  Black or white is so much easier and more comfortable than gray.  I easily fall into the trap of:

• This will work, that won’t work.
• They like me, they don’t like me.
• They are part of my tribe, they are not part of my tribe.
• This is of God, this is not of God.

And of course, my absolute favorite, the grand champion of this “either or” paradigm is “I am right and you are wrong.”  Or, since I am married, “I am right and she is wrong.”  Undoubtedly, no questions asked, this is the number one thought on the Billboard Top 40 Hits of my brain.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it is exclusionary and reductive instead of inclusive and additive.  For me, I find it often promotes my judgment of others instead of understanding and grace.

We all pay lip service to the belief that the only person we can change is ourselves, but how often do we pray for God to change the other person?  What if instead of changing the other person, we could let God grow us, grow our heart, our patience, and our understanding?  What if he could grow us so much that black plus white became not gray but something else entirely?

God clearly delivered the coup de grace to binary thinking about 2000 years ago.  Beginning with Abraham, he introduced his chosen people to monotheism and then – WHAM – he hit us with something totally not understandable from an earthly point of view.  God is one thing but not one thing.  God is a three in one – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Isaiah 55:8-9- For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Let’s call my understanding and comfort with the incomprehensible mystery of the Trinity a moving target.  Right now, it is a challenge, a reminder, that I need to ask God to grow me beyond black and white, beyond “either or,” to a place of “both and,” where grace is found where there used to be judgment.

Here are a few questions to continue the discussion:

1. What thoughts are on your Billboard Top 40 Hits of Either Or thinking?
2. How do you ask God to help you avoid these traps?
3. Do you have an experience to share of when God grew you out of a problem?