When God Doesn't Make Sense

Sometimes God just doesn't make sense. We try to make sense of the things we do not understand. We see all the horrible things that happen in our world today and we ask, "Where is God?" Sometimes we do not realize that He is right here with us even in these hard moments. In the last month there have been eight murders in our area. We do not know why. There is nothing that can make logical sense as to why someone would do something like that to anybody. Then we look at the school massacre that happened not to long ago that rocked our whole country. What I find interesting is that there are so many of us in this country that either do not believe in God and struggle with His very existence; yet God is the first one we want to be angry at or blame for the tragedies that happen in this world. Questions arise like, "If God is so good and all powerful why does He not stop evil from happening in this world?" "Why do people have to suffer and die?" "How can God let little children be raped and murdered?" "Why? Why? Why?" Why, is the biggest little question that humans have been trying to answer for years. The problem is is we cannot find a logical answer to satisfy our own understanding. We can take this down to the not so drastic level by looking at our everyday living. Why doesn't God just make it so we no longer commit sin. Is God not capable of making us sinless? These are all real questions. To be quite honest I personally do not believe that we can have all of our why questions answered. Think about this, if God just took over and manipulated every situation to be such that there was no more suffering in the world wouldn't we be more like marionettes being played and moved by a heavenly puppeteer? I do not think God intended for us to live that way. IF God made this world in such a way that no one was able to kill each other or even more so that they no longer had the choice to make between right and wrong we would simply be just another program in this matrix we call life. The truth is, God never intended for us to suffer. He did not create us to die. He created us to be in relationship with Him. If we look back at Genesis chapter three it was us who turned our backs on God. We chose to eat of the fruit. We chose to listen to the serpent rather trusting God about that one simple tree. It was that one simple decision that both Eve and Adam made when they thought that God was holding something out on them. The reality is God was protecting us from all that He knows of good and evil in this world. So is God trying to keep us spiritually nieve? No, He did not want us to suffer all that we have suffered. When we decided to give into the temptation at the beginning this beautiful world that God created was no longer perfect. Sin was birthed by our choice to chose the knowledge of good and evil over trusting that God knows what is the better choice for us. This is where the story gets exciting. Although we were born into this sin and those that do not have any faith in God there is still hope. This is why he came to us in human form in the man Jesus. This is why Jesus is so vital to our faith, and our relationship with God. It is not about following a religion. This is about the God of the universe wanting to restore back into the beautiful relationship we once had with Him. When we accept Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior we are no longer slaves to sin. By the power of Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His conquering of death we are able to say no to sin. That is where our freedom lies. As Proverbs 3:5-6 says, Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight. That is the key. When we reach all these seemingly unanswerable questions (and some of them do not have an answer in our time), that is where our faith in Jesus comes in. He will straighten things out in HIS time; not ours. We will find our encouragement when we let go of our desires and give them all into His hands. That is where we will find our peace. I love what Augustine said when he spoke these words, "My heart is restless until it finds it's peace in You." That is so true. We are restless until we give ourselves completely to God. We may not find all the answers we want right now, but then again maybe we weren't meant to have them. I pray that who ever reads this and they are struggling with the unanswered questions that it does not turn them away from God but draws them deeper into the Scripture that you may never have to wrestle alone. Have a good week and wrestle well.