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We want God to make sense.
But there’s a problem. We’re humans. We live in our own corner of the universe with our own worldviews, ideas, and values. We, with our peephole-sized view of the world, determine our own idea of how things should be.
So, in the face of a Divine Master that doesn’t match our concept of “God,” we humans reject Him. Even though His reality is substantially clear, we deny Him and choose to follow our own desires (Romans 1:20-21).
This is a bad enough problem in a lost society, but this kind of thinking is invasive; it’s found its way even back into the lives of redeemed Christians.
Even we Christians want God to make sense.
The truth is that Christians aren’t all-knowing either. And so, quite often, we pick and choose what we want “God” to be and in so doing adopt a god we’ve created. We keep the stuff we like, explain away the stuff we don’t, and worship the god that makes sense.
I’ll admit that sometimes I want God to make sense, too. I want to know what He thinks and why He does what He does. But I can’t. And you know what? I’m okay with that.
I don’t understand God. And that’s awesome.
Why would I want to understand Him anyway? He’s God! If I fully understood God, what would that say about Him? That would mean that either (1) I would be all-knowing, like He is, or (2) He would be small and not-so-knowing, like me. One makes me God and the other makes God nothing.
God is so much more than I can imagine. That doesn’t just mean that He’s infinitely better than I am, but that He’s infinitely different. He’s not just “more” loving, or “more” merciful, or “more” wise. He’s God. He has a nature I can’t even comprehend: three Holy Persons in One.
I can’t understand how God could be three Persons, yet be one God. I can’t understand how He can predestine my salvation, yet give me the ability to make choices. I can’t understand how He can be the Eternal Judge, yet show me the grace and mercy that I don’t deserve.
These things that seem contradictory to the finite human mind serve to prove that He is God – and I am not.
He’s not just better. He’s utterly different.
Does this mean I shouldn’t seek to know Him better, though? Of course not! He wants me to catch a glimpse of who He is. That’s why He revealed Himself through creation and through His Word. It’s my job to seek to know Him more! But as I do, it’s also my job to realize that there are many, many things that I will never understand about Him and to trust Him because of that fact (not in spite of it).
God doesn’t make sense. And that’s wonderful. Why would I want to think otherwise?
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
‘For who has known the mind of the Lord,
Or who has been his counselor?’
‘Or who has given a gift to him
That he might be repaid?’
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33-36)