God Doesn't Always Make Sense

I believe God is good and does good.

I believe He is love.

I believe He holds me in His everlasting arms.

AND YET-

  • little girls are washed away in a flood while they sleep in their cabin.

  • hostages remain in captivity for almost two years and children starve as terrorists steal aid meant for them.

  • cancer racks the bodies of good people.

  • Christians in Nigeria and Syria are attacked and killed

  • human trafficking thrives

How do I reconcile these things? Why doesn’t God extract people from abusive situations or strike evil people dead in their tracks?

Yes, I believe in Jesus with my whole heart and STILL ask these questions.

Why I Can’t Understand God

You know, the God who created the universe is not the only thing that doesn’t make sense to me. Here are a few others:

  • quantum physics

  • brain surgery

  • rubix cubes

  • how people can think and speak in multiple languages

  • how signals transmit content through the air to become a movie on my TV

I could go on, because LOTS more things confuse me, but I bet you get the idea and you have your own points of confusion. And the multiple things that don’t make sense to us illustrates my point. In the book, In A Pit With A Lion On A Snowy Day, Mark Batterson discusses Isaiah 55:8-9 which says:

  • 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.

So, how much higher are the heavens from the earth? Mr. Batterson explains that astronomers have found galaxies that are 12.3 billion light-years away from the earth. That means that for light to travel from that planet to us it would take 12.3 billion years, while it only takes eight minutes for light to travel from our sun to us.

Mark Batterson makes this conclusion:

  • “Your best thought about God on your best day falls 12.3 billion light-years short of how great and how good God is. We underestimate God’s goodness and greatness by at least 12.3 billion light-years.”

Why God Doesn’t Make Sense

No wonder God doesn’t make sense!

It’s like looking at a pebble and complaining that the Grand Canyon isn’t as beautiful as I expected.

It’s like hearing one note and telling Beethoven his 5th Symphony needs some improvement.

It’s like pointing to one bolt and criticizing the builders of the Golden Gate Bridge.

But the story doesn’t end there. God the Father understands our limitations of comprehension, even when we do not. His ways are not the only thing beyond our comprehension. So is His LOVE and His FORGIVENESS.

  • Psalm 103:11-12 - For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

Jesus Doesn’t Make Sense Either

In fact, His ways are so vastly beyond mine that He established a plan even at the moment Adam and Eve messed everything up. Only the triune God, whose ways and love are 12.3 billion light-years beyond mine, could have come up with a plan that inserted Himself into our world in such an intimate way.

He loves you — and He loves me — SO MUCH that He took on flesh

  • Hebrews 2:17-18 - Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

  • Hebrews 4:15 - For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

He loves us SO MUCH that He, the uncontainable, incomprehensible God, CHOSE to take on every limitation the flesh delivers.

Here are other things about God I don’t understand:

  • Why didn’t He just stay 12.3 billion light-years away?

  • Why does He love us enough to suffer for us?

  • Why did He chose the cost of intimacy with humans, the experience of betrayal, the pain of crucifixion, and the separation of death?

Yes, He could have stayed 12.3 billion light-years distance away, but, He is the God who is NEAR and who came near!

  • Psalm 34:18 - The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

  • Psalm 145:18 - The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

  • Acts 17:27b-28a - “... Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for "'In him we live and move and have our being …”

  • Matthew 28:20b - “… And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Yes, hard things happen, but God is not our puppet master. The cost of our free will and the capricious nature of our fallen world allows pain, loss, and destruction. God doesn’t always or even usually act in miraculous ways, though sometimes He does. And I don’t usually understand why or how He makes those choices.

But, I love Him. I drink deep of the salvation I so desperately need over and over again. I find security in the fact that He has an eternal plan, even though I can’t comprehend it. I rest in His saving grace, though I don’t deserve it.

God loves me? That doesn’t make sense.

God forgives me? That doesn’t make sense.

God doesn’t leave me when I sin in the same ways over and over? That doesn’t make sense.

The God who created the universe intimately speaks to my heart? That doesn’t make sense.

Maybe I can’t understand God, but He is worth every fiber of my being and I will spend my days pursuing Him. Want to join me?

  • Psalm 145:3 - Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Susan MaciasComment