A world map hangs in our kitchen. It’s a large map, perhaps five feet tall and seven feet wide. I use it when I am listening to the news. Too often, I have a hard time with my geography (particularly, I admit, in Africa) and I want to make sure I can picture where a particular event might be happening.

It is a good habit, but of course the problem is that I cannot truly picture very much. I hear news reported from around the world: tales of wars and cease-fires, elections and changing loyalties, upheavals and the strengthening of the status quo. It is good that I learn as much as I can, but I know my limits. I do not know what it is like to be a child-soldier in Uganda. I am ignorant of what it is like to farm in China. I cannot imagine being a journalist in Moscow.

Nor am I able to comprehend our national life. I try to grasp the problems with our health care system, but there are far too many details for me to thoroughly understand them all. It is the same with education, the military, the Environmental Protection Agency. Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying I cannot know anything, or that I should stop trying. It is just that there is too much to know, so I cast my own votes informed as much by my blindness and uncertainty as by my knowledge and convictions.

All this makes me very suspicious when Jesus tells me to go out into the world and make disciples, or when I pray that we might be one in ministry to all the world. It is not that I doubt the intentions behind such things. I do believe that the gospel is real, and that the world is hurting and in need of transformation. But dare I tell someone what their life is missing when I have never set foot in their shoes? And I know our church shares money, and that the money is needed, but surely ministry should be more than that. I fear that, if it were not for occasional offerings, we would have very little connection with most of our neighbors.

I could stop here – and then I would have to go home and tear my world map off the wall, despairing of the possibility of any real connection with anyone outside my country, my community, my church, my self. But I don’t despair. Rather, I’ve learned to hear God’s voice in my ignorance. God calls to us in what we do not know, and speaks to us of the need for humility, and trust, and openness. God reminds us that our wisdom is often foolish, and that we do better ministry with curious minds and searching hearts. In this way, our ignorance becomes a path to God’s wisdom. We find with delight that God’s salvation has already been at work… and that there’s room for us to participate.