I love it when we’re on a long trip in our minivan and the kids are watching a movie on the DVD player, using headphones so that Phil and I don’t have to hear it. We’ll be driving along in relative silence for awhile when one of the kids will say, in response to the video, something so seemingly random (because we haven’t heard the part of the movie to which they are responding) that it’s hilarious.
Take, for example, our recent trip to San Antonio (about 4.5 hours away). We were on the way home, and Lindsey and Jessica were watching Word World. Suddenly, Jessica called out, “It’s because he’s allergic to peaches!”
That struck me and Phil as funny because to us, it was completely out of the blue. Of course, if we had heard the part of the episode leading up to it, I’m sure it would have made complete sense and probably not been funny at all.
As I thought about this—about how the reason it was so funny was not because of the words themselves, but because they were out of context—I realized something. Lots of things seem “out of context” to us in life. They appear random, completely unexpected. But that’s because we don’t have the big picture of which they are a part. Some of these things are funny; some are confusing; and some are sad or even tragic. But all of them would make sense if we could only see the whole picture the way God sees it.
The problem is that we can’t see things that way. We see only a fraction of what is going on, only a thread of how a particular happening or event is being woven into the entire tapestry of our lives and the much larger tapestry of God’s plan for the world. When something happens that we can’t imagine what kind of picture it might fit into, we get confused. This can’t be a part of any picture I would approve of, we think to ourselves. Maybe we even say something like it out loud. I can’t imagine why God would do this or allow this, or, more to the point, A loving God wouldn’t do that.
In other words, we question God because we can’t see what He sees. My friend, I assure you that God doesn’t randomly hand out pain with no purpose behind it. He has a purpose. We’re just so far from being able to see the entirety of what’s going on that we don’t “get it”. In our limited, finite humanness, we’re bewildered. How could this happen?
I don’t know why bad things have happened in your life, or in mine. I don’t claim to know God’s purpose behind it all. But I do know that God is God when I’m in pain just as much as He is when things are going well for me. He’s not a loving God when I feel blessed and an unkind, capricious one when I hurt. He’s the same God always, and if I could only see the way He sees, I would understand and accept why a particular event had to happen.
But I can’t see everything like God does, and I never will. So what do I do—what do you do—when something seems out of place to us? When it’s painful?
During those times, we pray for the grace to truly believe that God sees the whole picture and that He knows what He’s doing. You and I will never entirely share God’s perspective. He is so infinitely far above us that we will spend all eternity learning new things about Him. But we can choose to believe what we know to be true and not let painful circumstances cause us to doubt. They may temporarily steal our peace from us, our possessions, or even our loved ones. We don’t have to let them steal our faith too.
Ecclesiastes 8:17—I saw everything God has done. No one can understand what happens on earth. Man might try very hard to figure it out. But he still can’t discover what it all means. A wise man might claim he knows. But he can’t really understand it either.