When God Doesn’t Make Sense
I think the activities of the last weekend caught up with me. I found myself more fatigued than what I expected, but I am learning that seems to be a “new normal” for me. This afternoon, I traveled to Denver to visit my mother in Englewood and then to the studios of KNUS. I appreciate Krista Kafer allowing me to join her to talk about my book, “The Longest Campaign” and my journey toward full recovery from West Nile Virus.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “Like these good figs, so I regard as good the exiles from Judah I sent away from this place to the land of the Chaldeans. I will keep My eyes on them for their good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them…” Jeremiah 24:5,6 HCSB
In Jerusalem it was the beginning of the end or more toward the end of the end. King Jeconiah has just been taken captive to Babylon with some of the craftsmen from the Temple. The Lord shows Jeremiah a vision of two baskets of figs, before the Temple. One basket the figs are very good. The other baskets has figs in them that are so bad they are inedible.
When the Lord gives the meaning of the vision, He says the “good” figs are those who surrender and go to Babylon. The “bad” figs are the people who remain in Jerusalem or those who try to escape to Egypt. What?! How could it be God’s will to “give in” to “surrender to the enemy” to not stay or escape from the hand of the oppressive power of Nebuchadnezzar?
God’s people then and God’s people today, struggle when “God’s ways” don’t make sense. They struggle when God’s direction and those God uses are contrary to what makes sense. But in the midst of their perplexity of God’s will, here is God’s promise, “I will keep My eyes on them for their good and will return them to this land. I will build them up and not demolish them; I will plant them and not uproot them. I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Yahweh. They will be My people, and I will be their God because they will return to Me with all their heart.” (Jeremiah 24:6,7 HCSB)
Those who sought to seek their “own way out” of this judgment and from the purposes God was wanting to accomplish are told, “I will make them an object of horror and disaster to all the kingdoms of the earth, a disgrace, an object of scorn, ridicule, and cursing, wherever I have banished them. I will send the sword, famine, and plague against them until they have perished from the land I gave to them and their ancestors.” (Jeremiah 24:9,10 HCSB)
As I have been reading the Book of Job, it has become more clear that the struggle for Job and his “friends” was not being able to understand that “bad could happen to good people.” Since Job was under a “curse” he had to be bad. But Job knew the life he had lived so he concluded, that God was being “unjust.”
We often say that “hindsight is 20/20 vision.” But “jumping to conclusions” about what God is “up to” is being blind to the fact that God does at times (often many times) do things that don’t make sense to us. The temptation then is to make the wrong judgment about the situation, ourselves or God. It is always better to choose God’s will than to take situations into our “own hands.”
On this July 4th as I look at a presidential election, I have to have assurance that “God know what He is doing” even if it doesn’t make sense to me. Otherwise, there is only cynicism and despair. I’m not making any final declarations one whom God is going to use, or what is going to happen, other than, “I’m keeping my eyes on the Lord and confident that God’s will is going to prevail.” What all that means, we will see as time unfolds. We can be confident that God’s desire is for people to “return to Him with all their heart.”
Prayer for Today…. “Lord, we live in challenging and perplexing times. Help us to keep our eyes on You and keep our trust in You. Let us not jump to conclusions or attempt take matters into our own hands, when things don’t make sense. Thank you the most important thing is to cooperate with Your will for our lives and our world.”