The Sense of Things

Why Things Appear Senseless

Is it then any wonder why things we see or experience don’t make sense to us? At any given time we are only seeing a tiny, tiny fraction of the story. And the truth is, our sinful pride often leads us to a selfish myopic reading of it. We end up foolishly putting more faith in tiny bit that we see rather than the immense things God, the Author, says.

But doesn’t the Bible give us example after example after example of saints whose experience for a while — perhaps much or even all of their lives — looked wrong and yet turned out to be part of a story far larger and more meaningful than they previously imagined?

• Didn’t infertility look wrong to Abraham and Sarah for decades?
• Don’t you think that to Moses, whose life began with so much promise and apparent significance, shepherding another man’s livestock for 40 years in the Midian wilderness must have felt like a wasted life?
• Didn’t Elimelech’s and Mahlon’s and Chilion’s deaths in Moab look horrible and hopeless to Naomi (Ruth 1)?
• Didn’t it look, both to himself and to everyone else, like the man born blind in John 9 had been cursed God?
• Didn’t Mary grieve over Jesus’s apparent unresponsiveness to Lazarus’s life-threatening illness?

There are dozens and dozens of such accounts in the Bible. And they all testify to this: how things appear to us as characters in the story is an unreliable conveyor of meaning; we must trust the Author’s perspective.

Trust the Author

The Author is telling the story and the Author gives each of us characters and each event more meaning than we could have imagined. What might make no sense to us today is in fact so shot through with meaning that we would be struck speechless in worshipful awe if we knew all that God was doing. And someday we will know and will worship.

The naturalistic prophets are telling you a story of meaningless despair. Do not believe their nonsense. That’s what it is. You have a need for meaning because meaning exists. Meaninglessness is an illusion; it’s a deception.

Therefore do not give in to the temptation to cynicism because you cannot yet make sense of events occurring in the world or in your own life. That is the common experience of a character in a larger story. Trust the Author with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. If in all your ways you acknowledge him, he will direct you in living out most fully and fruitfully the amazing role he has given you to in this most real of all stories (Proverbs 3:5–6). And someday the Author will tell you the Story in full. You will be blown away.