When God Doesn't Make Sense

Let's face it, by human standards and reasoning, God doesn't always make sense. Did it make sense when He told Abraham to take all his possessions and leave the only home he knew to go to an undetermined place that God would eventually show him, and then to sacrifice his beloved son? Noah's neighbors sure didn't think it made sense for him to build a huge ship in the middle of the desert. Did it make sense when Joshua led the Israelites to just march around the city walls of Jericho for days in a row? Wouldn't you have felt rather foolish? Saul and his army certainly thought David was foolish to go up against the  

Philistine giant with nothing but a slingshot. Elijah confronted King Ahab, depended on birds to feed him, went into enemy territory to stay with an impoverished widow, and took on hundreds of Baal's prophets in the showdown on Mount Carmel. Jonah thought it was insane to go to the Assyrian capital and tell Israel's brutal enemies to straighten up or else. Time and time again, God has asked His people to do things that didn't seem reasonable.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9).

I felt some disapproval when I answered God's call to go to the southern Philippines and teach for a semester. Here I was, a single woman, traveling all alone half way around the world to a place I'd never been and knew no one. Several people tried to talk me out of it. What was I thinking! I was thinking that I would trust in my Lord, and I would be fine, and I was. It turned out to be one of the most rewarding things I've ever done.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5).

This is the key to living a fulfilled Christian life -- trust. We know that God sees everything and knows all. We don't. He also wants what's best for us, but, just as children don't always see that in their parents, we don't always understand either. If you will step out in faith to follow His will, however, you will never be disappointed, no matter the circumstances or how things turn out.

"Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation: There shall be no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh to thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy food against a stone" (Psalm 91:9-12).

Jonah is a good example of someone who belonged to God but tried to do things his own way. He couldn't understand why God would ask him to go to the heathen barbarians in Nineveh. He didn't think they deserved a second chance, and they were very likely to kill him. He ran in the opposite direction, and we know how that turned out. Doing things apart from God is always disastrous. 

"So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging" (Jonah 1:15).

Let's make up our minds today to trust God above all else, knowing we don't have to understand; we just need to obey. He is the only One worthy of all our trust. 

"The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour..." (2 Samuel 22:3).

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