Human Reasoning vs Trusting God
I have had several conversations recently where someone was telling me about a difficult situation. One situation was getting behind a slow driver on the road when the gal was already running late. “I just tell myself God is protecting me from something. Maybe I’d be in an accident if I was further up the road.” Another woman shared that her daughter was unable to compete in her favorite sport due to injury. “I just tell my daughter that God is protecting her from something. God always has a plan.” These statements seem to be trusting in God’s plan, but are they really?
This morning I woke to hear the news of an airliner and helicopter colliding and killing all people onboard both aircraft. Almost 100 people died yesterday near Reagan International Airport as a result of a midair collision. I then saw a story of a team USA ice skater who had been denied passage onto that same airplane in Wichita, Kansas because his dog was too big to kennel. His life was spared because God stopped his access to the plane. These things certainly happen. But is God always sparing us an accident, death, or something worse than the situation we are currently in?
God says that His will for us is our sanctification (1 Thess 4:3b). God's desire for us is to be transformed from one degree of glory to the next as we behold the glory of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18). God says He uses all things in the life of a believer to make them more like Christ (Romans 8:28-29). So, isn’t God’s purpose in us getting behind a slow driver or not being able to participate in our favorite activities due to injury to make us more like His Son.
Going back to the conversations with the two women mentioned above, the desire to reason with ourselves why something is difficult so we can accept it is really saying “God’s plan must make sense to me”. If we can justify why this negative experience is happening, then we’ll be okay with it. The focus on self and needing to have proof that God’s action is justified is not really trusting God. This is really trusting in reason and wanting God to justify why our experiences are challenging.
Scripture calls us to focus our reasoning on God. In Matthew 6 we are told that we don’t need to be anxious because God cares for sparrows. We don’t need to be anxious because God knows what we need. We don’t need to be anxious because God has put so much detail in the flowers of the field that we can trust Him with care for us. This type of reasoning is in Truth. We know who God is because He has declared Himself to be those things in Scripture. Creating a reason why something might be happening is speculation. It is an attempt to keep ourselves calm in the face of adversity rather than trust that God knows best.
Trusting God means trusting His plan in all things. We may not see or understand a specific purpose behind an experience. Will we choose to trust God when it doesn’t make sense? Creating “reasons” in our minds to justify God’s actions is really saying our knowledge and understanding must be satisfied. When we can make sense of something in our own minds then we’ll be okay with what God is doing. But, when we trust God, when we take Him at His word, we do not have to invent reasons. We can rest in God’s sovereignty because He is good, wise, loving, just, righteous, holy, and infinite.