Did you know you’re as smart as Albert Einstein? (Sarah Lindsey, LPC)

“Did you know you’re as smart as Albert Einstein?”

I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard this question from a client of mine. Because, in fact, no, I was not aware of that, nor did I think she was being serious. As a client I had been working with for several months, she had become accustomed to several of my mantras as a therapist and often reported hearing them in her head. So, after I had quit laughing, she went on to explain that she had recently read a quote from Albert Einstein in a novel she was reading that essentially represented the essence of my latest mantra:

“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

Although this may seem dismal on the surface, the awareness of how little we know can lead to a surrender that is foundational to peace. It is so common for clients, friends, and myself to become focused on what we think we know, what we seek to know, or what we wish we would have known that we miss the peace that comes with surrender. In the book The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness: The Path to True Christian Joy, author Timothy Keller writes about the freedom we can experience when we shift our mindset completely away from ourselves.

This book proved to be transformative for me during a time of unexpected change and loss. Fueled by righteous anger, I sat down as a client instead of a therapist and passionately laid out the evidence of my discontent. I was confident in the validation I would receive and desperate for a way to problem-solve my oppressor. My therapist was patient and caring as I processed through my past and laid out my present. He then proceeded to ask some direct and difficult questions, best summed up as, “Why do you think you know better?” He ended the session with a recommendation to read the words of Tim Keller.

In under 50 pages, Keller lays before us a simple and direct path to a transformed life using the teachings of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:21–4:7. It always amazes me when the historical writings of Scripture apply so directly to the present day, and this perfectly exemplifies that. Paul is keenly aware of the source of despair being rooted in the constant pursuit of ego: success, admiration, acceptance, beauty, wisdom. The lifelong pursuit of knowing we are enough through our financial, societal, marital, and/or parental status.

Paul takes this desire and flips it completely upside down, as Jesus had done before him. Keller explains it as follows:

“Paul is saying something astounding. ‘I don’t care what you think and I don’t care what I think.’ He is bringing us into a new territory that we know nothing about. His ego is not puffed up, it is filled up.”

The “filling” was where the peace lived.

Up to this point, I was comfortable living my life by my own standards: not “of this world,” bearing fruit of the Spirit, etc. Yet I had faced a season of life where none of that seemed to amount to what it was supposed to. Everything that was supposed to say that I make good choices had crumbled, and the person I was trying to control was making it harder and harder.

As Keller pointed out, Paul reminds us that “there is no trial, the verdict is in.” I am enough. Jesus said so when He gave His life.

No longer did I need to correct others’ wrongs, control the situation, or think through every possible outcome in order to reduce risk. The biggest lesson I had learned up to that point was that I really don’t know. And although that was very important, it was incomplete.

Keller’s book nudged me toward the next step: It’s okay that you don’t know.

The freedom of forgetting to think about your thoughts creates room to choose to see yourself and the world around you through the eyes of the Redeemer—the One who has already solved all the things. We can forget to care about what we think because we know that we don’t know, but He does.

I see evidence of this in many different professions and traditions. AA proclaims the mantra, “more will be revealed.” Ancient Buddhists recite, “If there is no help for it, why be so glum?” Mother Goose even releases the search for a remedy with, “If there be one, find it; if there be none, never mind it.”

In my mind, in order to realign with my faith, I have reminded myself—and anyone who will listen—that we don’t know boo about squat.

We don’t know why she got sick.

We don’t know why he left.

We don’t know why they lied

.We don’t know why we are in the spot we are in.

We don’t know why it didn’t go how it was supposed to.

This is often what is revealed to us if we live long enough to experience unexpected changes.

I had recently shared this truth about “boo and squat” when my client read the words of Einstein in her latest novel. She described the laughter she let out as she remembered the moment we had shared, and how she has continued to be reminded of how little we know—and the peace that has replaced the emptiness.

This peace does not replace grief, pain, or anger, as those things do not need replacing. Instead, the peace removes the quest for justification, vindication, or validation by choosing to rely on what we are told about who we are instead of what we “know” right now.

Which, according to some of the greatest minds of our time, is not much at all.