When God doesn't make sense

Have you ever been in a situation that you just couldn't make sense of and wondered what God was doing? That may seem like all the time for some of us. Sometimes, life just doesn't make sense. If you're a teenager or the parent of a teenager, like I am, life may not be making sense right now. It could be that you're going through something at your job or in your marriage that doesn't make sense right now. Maybe you just have a burden on your heart, something you know God wants you to do, that doesn't make sense.

Can I let you in on a secret? Sometimes God does some amazing things when our lives don't make sense. I can look back over my life and see that the times when I was most perplexed were the times that God was most active in getting my attention. God wants our attention because He wants to reveal things to us. As a father, I find that sometimes I have to go to extreme measures to get my children's attention. Sometimes I have to raise my voice or repeat myself several times.

Here's an example. I can remember an incident that took place a few years ago when my son was 11 or 12 years old. I was sitting in my chair in the living room when I noticed that he had taken off his coat and dropped it in the middle of the floor on his way through to the kitchen. I called him back into the living room and told him to pick it up and put it where it belongs. He mumbled, "Okay" and turned around and went back into the kitchen and proceeded to make a mess fixing himself a snack. As he came back through the living room I asked him, "Did you clean up your mess in the kitchen?" He turned around and went back into the kitchen and proceeded to make a commotion, his idea of cleaning up after himself. Then he made his way back through the living room, again, and walked right by the coat on the floor -- the one I had already told him to pick up. I calmly said, "Pick up your coat." He didn't. I said it again. "Pick up your coat." He kept walking. I yelled, "Pick up your coat! Pick up your coat!" After the fourth time he said, "Oh, I forgot" and finally picked it up.

Now I'm not certain, but I'm pretty sure, that it ended up on his bedroom floor, right where it belonged. My point is, that's not the way I normally talk to people. I don't go around repeating myself and yelling. Okay, I'm a preacher, sometimes I do repeat myself and yell, but mostly just on Sundays, not when I'm having a conversation with someone. If I talked to people like that all the time it would be, well, crazy. So, that's not the way I normally talk to people. It's not even the way I want to talk to my children, but sometimes I have to do something a little crazy in order to get their attention. Sometimes God will do some crazy things to get our attention, too. Otherwise we might just keep walking and not pay any attention to him. God loves us too much to let us just keep walking. He wants our attention because he wants to show us something, or teach us something, or maybe just draw us near to Him for a moment.

In the book of Acts, God does some amazing things in the lives of people. In Acts 2:12, we read about people being "amazed and perplexed." We don't always have to understand what God is doing, we just have to trust Him to be God. Whatever situation you find yourself in, I hope you're trusting God to be God and I hope you're learning to see what it is that He's trying to show you.

God bless, Paul Bryant

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Editor's note: Paul Bryant is the pastor of First Baptist Church, Garfield. He can be contacted by email at [email protected]

Religion on 08/03/2016