Lately – that is, the past few weeks – I have felt horribly out of sorts. It is as if there is a fog in my brain, or as if I’m walking through molasses or trying to breathe underwater. The simplest of tasks becomes painstakingly difficult to focus on, and yet somehow I hazily complete it and move along. It is, I imagine, a bit like death.

There is a clear solution to all of this.

When was the last time I simply went away and rested outside? I cannot tell you – some months ago. But it builds up. You see, all through my life (and I suspect, all through yours as well) there has been something just out of grasp that I have been seeking, which, when I have begun to obtain the slightest glimmers of it, I have found my inmost being filled with meaning. You see, you and I are not defined by what we do or what we think or how we are thought of or done to, but we are defined by our desires. Our desires represent a hole – something that needs to be filled – and so define our function, as the hole in the glove defines its function. Our actions and thoughts stem from that mysterious emptiness of Desire somewhere in our souls: we either seek to fill it, or to run from it. Buddha was right in saying that it is the existence of desires that causes suffering. It hurts to have a hole in you.

Being the religious person that I am, I believe that my desires are fulfilled ultimately in God. I have made a mockery of this: I have bartered with God, rather than sought him; I have bartered with the world, rather than using it as a tool toward God; I have filled myself with business and deeds and my impressions on others, and all of it has been a poor match. But somewhere along the contours of the face of God lies a region wherein I fit precisely: all those desires, those wants and needs of the soul, are filled to the last bit by that area of his character. There is a region for you too: where all those strange passions you have had – and I don’t mean for sex or friendship or food or money or success, though those may be the faintest of their echoes – find their completion. I have never seen my portion, or should I say, that part of God from which and for which I was designed to understand, and I cannot even imagine what his face itself should look like. Every once in a great while I will get a glimpse of it: in a sky or a tree or a scrap of story or a poem or a word or a note or a rhythm or a breeze or a spray of water. There is some common thread to all these things which have whispered to me since a child about the nature of my creator – and there are many more, even imaginations which burst into my mind in the most wonderful ways – and yet they are only a peek of the mysterious and unknown God. That common thread, that common theme, is what defines intimacy: it is at the core of my being. If I have an intimate understanding of another, it is because we understand, though poorly, that theme which the other is seeking. And yet there is (painfully distant) that deepest intimacy of being enraptured with the one who is the very definition of that desire.

Sometime in the beginning, God spoke a word and created the universe. And there still lie, from far off, the reverberations of that sound, which sometimes may come together in a swell of sound to give the listener an idea of what they mean, of that word spoken so long ago in communication of the personage of its speaker. Perhaps it was ‘I am’, or ‘King and Lord and Lover’, or ‘It is begun’, or ‘It is finished’, and perhaps it has no correspondence in any human language. But when was the last time I went out to listen? Have I filled my life up with business and duties? I must have a “Christian mission” (whatever that means), and I must have a good output for schoolwork, and I must do this or that, in order to attain such-and-such for so-and-so a reason. My head is spinning and my eyes are clouded over from it. This is madness: all the noise of men (me) and none of the silence of the music of God.

I have some time this evening, and so I am going to go out to a park and find a solitary place in the midst of the trees and perhaps the creek that wanders down there, and just listen. No camera and no photography. No music. No stories. No schoolwork: no abysmal circuitry, no Greek. No hemorrhaging thoughts: they may come and go but they are not why I came. Most of all no electronics. Just me, trying to find a fragment of that desire that I have, to be reminded by the shadowy shades of a Texan scene (itself so far from the themes that speak to me) that there is a fulfillment to my desires, that there is a Face behind the veil. I need to spend some time remembering who I am, what I desire, and who they all flow from. It is not a sense of Joy, but it is a contentedness in knowing that joy exists.

I write this before I go because, if all goes well, I will certainly not be able to describe it to you. I will probably not even want to, words failing to grasp at what I only touched. But hopefully I will find, or be found by, that desire which has haunted me my whole life, or at least a reflection of it, and be reminded of who I am, and to whom I am headed. Everything else is details.

So… since I’ve come to terms with my sexuality (being what it is), and am open to a monogamous, lifetime relationship, that means it’s perfectly passable for me to pine away after my potential future partner, right?

Wrong!

I still have so much to learn about being single.

I have lately had much difficulty lusting after someone to be with. Oh my! When I was convinced of celibacy (until, of course, God fixed me), I was able to just push it aside – and had gotten quite good at it. But now that I have opened up the doors of permitting potential sexual expression, I have become too focused on the possibility and failed to accept my current singleness with thanksgiving. The thought of being able to have even a boyfriend has been all too consuming. I may yet be single for a long time. Why should that hinder me from God?

Paul claims, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” And earlier (these are both in Philippians), he speaks of the godless, saying that “their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things; but our citizenship is in heaven.”

The part about ‘their god is their stomach’ really hit me. In some other (non-Western) cultures, the stomach is thought of the same way we think of the heart. These are the two great paradigms in culture: the chest (phren) is where you feel deep-seated emotion, and thus desire stems from the heart; the stomach is where the insatiable hunger for food comes from, and so thus it must be the seat of desire. The point Paul is getting at is that the godless are focused on their desires, and let them rule over them. Yet he also claims that he knows what it is like to have these desires met and to have them not met, and he has learned the secret of being content in both. Man, what a spiritual stud!

Because I have desires, two things are bound to come to me in life: pain and pleasure, and they tempt me toward two ungodly worldly philosophies: ascetism and hedonism. And so I have swung too far to hedonism. The ascetic rejects godly gifts and so rejects the giver, and is tempted toward self-righteousness. The hedonist gladly accepts the gift and forgets the giver, and so is tempted toward license. But James, when speaking on the subject of desire (and its propensity to drag us into sin), says that “every good and perfect gift is from above”, and Paul, agreeing with him, says that “everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving”. So if God blesses us with pleasure, we are to receive the gift and glorify the giver. And if God withholds it from us, or sends us into a dry place where we experience want, we are to realize our hearts are being taught not to delight in the created thing, but in the Creator, and we glorify him just the same. But in either place I run the risk, because of my sinful nature, of taking my eyes off God either to dwell on his gifts or on my own ’spirituality’. But the pleasure is God’s gift to his children, whom he loves, and we receive it and behold our God in wonder and thanksgiving. And the dryness and pain is God’s wooing of our sinful hearts past the dross of the world, and we look beyond into his eyes far-off and eagerly anticipate the unveiling of our faces so we might see his. I am forever walking between hedonism and ascetism, and always getting back up again, to (by the grace of God) place my eyes on Christ through either pain or pleasure.

It’s all good to talk about this, but how do I really deal with pain and with pleasure in my life? But you already know, for it is the same way you do. I will crawl as far away as I can to get away from pain, and at the first scintillating tastes of pleasure will childishly abandon the source of all good pleasure, Christ himself. Thank God for his grace in the cross, without which there would be no hope, for I in my natural self would never come to heaven because I have nothing in me that desires God.

What am I to do with singleness? It is a pain, of a sort, though a small one when considering the breadth and depth of the sufferings of the worldwide church. Yet it is God’s good gift to me, for however long it lasts (and I will admit I shudder a bit to think how long it may be). But through the yearning – that desire for someone to cuddle with, to spend and evening with, even to one day wake up beside – I must make myself teachable to the lesson that behind all this lies God, and that he is the only ultimate source of comfort or joy, and I cannot idolatrize anything else. Then, perhaps, when I do receive that someone, I will be able to be with him properly, and not in a way that takes me from Christ, but beside my beloved with our eyes firmly fixed on the permanent reality of Jesus Christ, enjoying the goodness of the gift of companionship and all the intimacy with it, but with hearts set inexorably heavenward. Sexuality and all other worldly pleasures will be “rolled up like a scroll” and there behind it all lies the gift-giver: my final inexhaustable source of joy. If I cannot accept his dryness, how can I accept his gifts? All must be followed along that path straight along to Christ, for all other paths lead to hellish Nowhere, for there is no other source but him.

How abysmally short of all this I still fall!

I’ve been listening to entirely too much Josh Groban lately (and entirely too little schoolwork – gah but it’s hard to readjust). If you don’t know who Groban is, run – don’t walk – to your nearest CD supplier and buy his new album, “Awake”. It’s phenomenal, and way better than his previous ones: he really branches out beyond his original strict operatic style, and everything he does on this album seems to be gold (I guess having what’s arguably the best voice in the world today helps a little).

One of my favorites from the album is called Weeping. It’s a song about South Africa, released in 1987 in the same country by a band called Bright Blue. It was later revived by Vusi Mahlasela, and I heard it for the first time on Groban’s new album.

While the song was written for, and is painfully appropriate to, the South African apartheid system and the brokenness that descended on that country as a result of it, Weeping goes beyond that. To me, it reminded me of how I treated my homosexuality for so many years: locking it up, fearing it as a monster. I’m afraid there are quite a few people who do this. I don’t mean my Side B brothers and sisters, but there are those who are afraid, due to cultural or moralistic reasons, and repress everything. It doesn’t kill the monster: it is part of who you are, just as racial diversity is so inseparably a part of South Africa. But when night descended and all was happily quiet, approaching the creature’s cage I could faintly catch not the expected ferocious roars, but weeping. I’m not saying I should indulge my sexual desire wantonly – I’m waiting for marriage (or whatever you want to call it), and by the grace of God I hope to remain pure for however long it seems good to him for me to wait. But I am saying that fearfully pushing back what I believe now to be a perfectly natural desire, neither inherently good nor bad, rather than dealing with it and bringing it into its appropriate place before Christ, produced a great deal of harm.

I am sure there are many realms of life that can be viewed this way. Many of us have kept a part of our life pushed back and hidden away out of shame or fear. It may have been a particular talent that was looked down on in our society, or a physical trait that is itself neutral but we felt we needed to purge ourselves of.

Weeping is about South Africa, but part of lyrical magic is the ability for the words to bleed over into other areas of life. Here are the words:

I knew a man who lived in fear
It was huge, it was angry, it was drawing near
Behind his house, a secret place
Was the shadow of a demon he could never face.

He built a wall of steel and flame
And men with guns to keep it tame
Then, standing back, he made it plain
That the nightmare would never ever rise again
But the fear and the fire and the guns remain.

It doesn’t matter now
It’s over anyhow
He tells the world that it’s sleeping
But as the night came round
I heard its lonely sound
It wasn’t roaring, it was weeping.

And then one day, the neighbors came
They were curious to know about the smoke and flame
They stood around outside the wall
But of course there was nothing to be heard at all.

“My friends”, he said, “we’ve reached our goal
The threat is under firm control
As long as peace and order reign
I’ll be damned if I can see a reason to explain
Why the fear and the fire and the guns remain.”

It doesn’t matter now
It’s over anyhow
He tells the world that it’s sleeping
But as the night came round
I heard its lonely sound
It wasn’t roaring it was weeping.

Not too long ago I finished Francis Collins’ The Language of God. Good book; I recommend it. I realized, when I was almost all the way through it, that I was agreeing with much of what Collins said, and the thought occurred to me that I can no longer call myself a Christian Fundamentalist.

My listing from Fundamentalist doctrine has been going on for a while. It started when I decided to give the views of a Young or Old Earth a critical look. Now I wanted to validate Scripture, and if one takes a ‘literalist’ view, a young earth and a six-day creation are the only interpretations that make sense. It is all that one can believe.

But the evidence of an old universe is compelling. I have always had an interest in the heavens: the most peaceful moments in life have occurred out far away from the city, looking up at the diamonds scattered across the sky. This initiated my love of physics: for there is a beauty not only in the thing itself – in the nebulae and stars and galaxies and black holes – but also in the rules and patterns that govern them, a dance beyond the fathoming or comprehension of men. Glimpses into this are like faint stirrings of Heaven’s music. And no one can deny that we are receiving starlight from billions of light years away.

I immediately, as a literalist, had a few options. One was to ignore the scientific data and thus ignore its Creator. This was not a path I wanted to go down. Another was to change the scientific data, to claim different physical laws for the past in order to conform the data to a particular interpretation of religious text. But this immediately ran into problems: the physical laws are so finely tuned that tiny alterations, much less wild variations, would throw the universe into irreparable chaos). Another option, and perhaps the most disgusting of all, was to say that God had planted evidence (starlight) that points to no reality: that this was all created ‘as it were’ or, if we are cleverer wordsmiths, ‘with age’ (i.e., that God created starlight on its way to Earth, which never truly emanated from a star – that all those novae we have seen exploding and nebulae forming never truly existed). But this is wholly incompatible with who I understand God to be. He is not a trickster: he does not plant evidence that leads us nowhere; he does not manipulate the world in order to make things appear contrary to their nature. When we claim this, we claim a God who hates reason and enjoys playing mind-games with his creation. How sick!

And if we are to admit that the Big Bang, while imperfect, is the most probable and rational view for Creation, we can see a majestic and heavenly dance that God has orchestrated since the beginning of time, where matter and energy have tangoed and flown together in intoxicating obedience to the fundamental forces. This should humble us to how small we are compared to God’s Creation, and how much more inconceivably insignificant we are compared to his glory.

And so I had to admit the age of the universe. Re-read Genesis, and tell me what it means for God to literally ‘separate the light from the darkness’. Light is a particle-wave of no rest mass that travels at the speed limit of the universe in a congruence with Relativity that boggles my mind. It permeates the universe in timeless accord with all the laws of physics. What does it mean for God to literally separate ‘light from darkness’? Were the photons gathered in one place and not in another? We are here reading a poem, a psalm, a praise, and not literal history.

Then I looked at the age of the earth, and the evidence for the last ice age overwhelmed me, and confirmed the conflict with the sort of literalism I had been raised to believe. While some of the geological theories (such as canyon formation) have me confused, I have yet to approach a geologist about it, and on the whole, I must admit that the Earth is old indeed.

This raised the question of whether or not we could possibly have evolved. For a long time I resisted, but I had to ask myself: so what if we did? How does that diminish God’s glory? How does that sully Christ or the cross? I rejected it on alleged probabilistic grounds, but Collins brought up some genetic evidence of which I was unaware. I have not delved into it, but I cannot arrogantly dismiss sincere study of the matter on behalf of well-trained and intelligent men and women, and I have to ask: so what if I am descended from an ape? God is still the God who saves me and redeems me by his grace. Who am I worshipping, my own ‘high ancestry’ or the Uncreated God? I am but dust, whether raised directly from the earth or through common descent. What importance does one have over the other?

So what to do with Scripture? Consider Augustine:

The Spirit of God who spoke through [the biblical writers] did not choose to teach about the heavens to men, as it was of no use for salvation.

And Galileo, who loved God, yet held beliefs in conflict with such literalist interpretations:

I have two sources of perpetual comfort – first, that in my writings there cannot be found the faintest shadow of irreverence towards the Holy Church; and second, the testimony of my own conscience, which only I and God in heaven thoroughly know. And He knows that in this cause in which I suffer, though many might have spoken with more learning, none, not even the ancient Fathers, have spoken with more piety or with greater zeal for the Church than I.

And on the nature of the ‘slippery slope’ such views incur, Collins himself has excellent insight, which I quote from the book:

Doesn’t a compromise on Genesis 1 and 2 start the believer down a slippery slope, ultimately resulting in the denial of the fundamental truths of God and His miraculous actions? While there is clear danger in unrestrained forms of “liberal” theology that eviscerate the real truths of faith, mature observers are used to living on slippery slopes and deciding where to place a sensible stopping point. Many sacred texts do indeed carry the clear marks of eyewitness history, and as believers we must hold to this truth. Others, such as the stories of Job and Jonah, and of Adam and Eve, frankly do not carry that same historical ring.

Are we coming to Scripture missing the message because we are not looking for the proper one? The Bible exists for two chief purposes: to disclose the nature of God, and to bring men to him. And so it is on this last issue – the issue of Biblical ‘inerrancy’ and interpretation that I have come to my last and final disagreement with Fundamentalism, and what has caused a break. I cannot take the Scriptures at so-called ‘face value’. What most people mean to say by ‘face value’ is to commit the sin of Biblical interpolation: that is, to insert our modern context and mindset into an ancient text. The Bible is absolutely the Word of God, but we cannot tear the word apart from its culture and discourse context. We should hardly go around tape recording a person all day and then pull out bits of our recording, divorced from their environment, and use them to string together a belief concerning that person. Why should we then do this with God? He assuredly did speak to us: by prophets and apostles within a specific society to specific people at a time and place that existed in history.

My first real example of this was a brief study along with a group of men at my church on the New Testament Book of Jude. I hadn’t looked at it seriously before, but Jude relies very heavily on traditional and apocryphal literature for examples and metaphors. We don’t accept the writings these metaphors are taken from, but we do accept Jude. Why? Because we recognize that the author was speaking to a real audience in his day and time (not us here in the 21st century) and used stories his audience was familiar with in order to give them a clearer picture of the reality of God and our relationship to him. We must approach Scripture not the intent on prooftexting rules or scientific truths out of them. The purpose of all of God’s Word is to paint for us a picture of God himself, in terms and phrases that we can understand, so that we might come to him for salvation, and it is this Word that is seen most clearly and emphatically when it was made fully human. I mean Jesus Christ: and nothing in all of Scripture gets any deeper than the scandalous beauty of the cross. This is what it means to believe in the authority of Scripture.

Where does this leave me? I don’t think I am postmodern. I believe in such things as truth and reality and am not a Brian McLaren groupie. I will proudly brandish my conservative status to all interested (as to doctrine: a Calvinist, though I should hope a somewhat more tempered one than one is used to running into; as to tradition: holding to the Five Solas), but I must bid Fundamentalism adieu. I can no longer hold to the politics that so often come along with it: Christ himself said that his kingdom was ‘not of this world’. And I can no longer hold to the literalist’s view of Scripture: a high view – yes; an authoritative view – yes; but a view which above all keeps in mind the purpose of Scripture – a drawing near to God – when reading it.

This is not because I’m brilliant or have come to any sort of truth unguided and on my own. I have been reminded just today how terribly impoverished I am and in desperate need of Christ’s grace. Nor is this humility: it is a clean fact of scientific exactitude. I can only try to explain my position, right or wrong, and how I have come to it. I cannot rest on any of my own arguments, but only on Christ, along with you and all the rest of creation, for redemption to God’s side.

A recent topic on GCN caught my eye: it was a man questioning whether he’s turned his sexuality into an idol, having fixated on it too much. And this is something I can certainly relate to, that struck to my heart, and that I need to deal with.

On the one hand, I can totally understand the fixation. When the outside world finds out, there is a heavy tendency to focus exclusively on that element. As I wrote about in my initial struggle with my sexuality, I had a tendency to fixate on it even when trying to rid myself of it: it was the sin in my life. But coming out to yourself – which involves much more than mere mental recognition and struggle, but actual acknowledgement of facts rather than wishes – is a process that tends to focus on itself. Not that this is wholly wrong – often at the point of coming out there is already developed a whole well of questions over the years that come spewing out all at once – but that it cannot be consuming. And it is tempting to allow it to become consuming, both because of internal turmoil and also because of societal pressures (particularly in the evangelical church, where homosexuality has become a sort of ‘hill to die on’).

But Christ is the principality of my faith, and I cannot turn to the left or to the right and ignore him. I approach God’s throne by his grace through the death and resurrection of my savior: may he keep my mind from fixating on anything else! So in light of that, I’m going to try my best to avoid obsession on any object save Jesus Christ. That means accepting some things on faith, rather than compulsively re-examining minutae. That means dropping legalistic fears of being wrong, while still pursuing what is right. That means putting God’s grace at the center of my life.

Though this blog is largely about my path toward accepting God and my gayness, there are other paths toward reconciliation and resolution that I am on. For example, after finishing Francis Collins’ excellent The Language of God, I’ve realized that I am no longer a fundamentalist. This is a big deal for me. For some time, I’ve been listing away from many fundamentalist beliefs, but only recently have I realized that I’ve abandoned ship altogether. But the whole story I’ll save for another time. Think of it as a preview! (That sounds condemnably conceited, doesn’t it?)

Cheers.

I have been corresponding with a friend regarding the issue of the sinfulness of homosexuality. This is a friend who ministered to me greatly and whom I greatly respect: I see so much of Christ in him. My friend disagrees with me, and he believes that all homosexual sexuality is sinful.

Twice now he has impugned my motives. Do I really believe that God permits monogamous homosexual unions? Or am I just trying to justify my sin? Such thoughts have plagued me; it is why I was so hesitant to accept any of the arguments for it. Can I really disagree with so many godly Christians? With so much tradition? It is why I have approached the matter with so much trepidation and so much prayer.

I read his last e-mail to me – a short response, to be followed by a longer one – and it struck to the heart of my fear. I do not want to disobey God for my own dishonesty. Are you really seeking God, David? I have looked at this as detached intellectually as I can, and with as much fervent seeking of God as I can. But now I am unsure. And so I go to him, in fear and as much humility as I can: I want his truth.

“God, if I am wrong, please convict me, but if I am right, give me peace.”

And my heart’s fears and disturbances are stilled beyond all understanding. But I am not convinced.

“God, if I am wrong, please show me, but if I am right, give me peace.”

I open my eyes and there are two blankets smothering me: God’s grace and God’s sovereignty.

“God, if I am wrong, change me, but if not, affirm me!”

No response. Only the same peace.

I am not one who typically puts much in any “spiritual experience.” But I have no way to explain that peace. Perhaps it truly is my God, speaking to me. I woke up in the night, several times, and immediately began to pray. And each time I received peace and drifted back to sleep. And now I am awake once more and cannot go back to sleep. I cannot shake my convictions off: that God is not displeased with homosexuality. But shall I go against almost the entirety of the church?

Oh God, I am so afraid
I am afraid of being shut out
I am afraid of seeing the walls around the church go up around me
In my arrogant youthful dreaming I never thought of this
I was my own proud commander
And now my spirit fails me
God, will you leave me here?

Shall I in arrogance dismiss your fellow servants?
Shall I in arrogance dismiss you?
I do not want to follow my own way, but lead me in yours
I am dirt and dust and ashes, but you are way and truth and life

Oh God, I am so afraid
Forgive me, for your child loves the praises of men
He drinks them up, like poisoned water
Lead me instead to your living water

But if I am right, then vindicate your servant
Prepare him for the ministry that you have prepared
Do not leave him to the wolves
Do not come to him and leave him unchanged

Oh God, I am so afraid
I am afraid of breaking men’s traditions
And I am afraid of breaking your heart
And most of all I am afraid of never hearing you
And ignoring you when you speak

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of the sand.

When I awake,
I am still with you.”

Hallelujah, for God is near even to me.
His mercies are unmeasurable,
His love undending.

“Text without context is merely pretext.”

Scratch that.

“Life without context is merely pretext.”

I’ve lived a neatly compartmentalized life: as a student at school, a Christian at church, one type of person with these people and another with those. And then somewhere deep down there was a gay guy, but he was only let out for recommendations in home decor and gardening. But living such a fragmented life is living the life of a hypocrite: the man you can never really be sure you know because he changes from place to place.

Lately, as I’ve become more comfortable with my sexuality, and been trying to integrate everything into a whole, I’ve had a problem with figuring out my contexts.

On the one hand, I know I need to live a genuine life – as a complete person – so that I can walk legitimately with others. This is what it means I think when John tells us that “if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7). So I ought not to hide anything. But by the same token, Paul puts Christ first in his ministry, saying he has “become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). What to do?

I am involved with groups which will love me and have fellowship with me, so long as they don’t know I’m gay. If that comes out, I’m afraid I’ll receive either rejection or pity, but not fellowship. And I’m fine with not making an issue of it – I’m not exactly one to raise the rainbow flag and dance around – and how I wish it were a non-issue! – but what if the topic comes up? Do I lie? How do I live authentically as a whole child of God living under his grace and yet living within varied contexts? If my sexuality would be a stumbling block to some people, should I remain in the closet to them so to still be able to be involved in their lives?

Beyond where I am now, what contexts am I best suited for? Do I need to go out and make connections to the gay community? Not to proselytize, but to know people like myself and walk in relationship with them, displaying Christ in my life as best I can (that’s what “witnessing” really is, after all – a life, not mere words). And how exactly does one go out and make connections with the gay community? What is the ministry context that God has designed me for? And when I say ministry, I don’t mean a church office. Every Christian has a ministry, be it in their job, or in their unique community of relationships, or in an “official” church position. Ministry is living a life centered on Jesus in that place in the world where God has called you to be. Where is mine, and how will I know when I see it?

This seems to be one of the bigger questions I’m facing at the moment: I used to have simple answers for it, but not so much anymore.