Faith in the Face of Perplexity

There are many things that we don’t understand. There are even things that our Lord keeps from us. He tells us that he has His secrets (Deut. 29:29). Strangely, He sometimes even withholds words of comfort.

Abraham knew that it wasn’t going to fair well for Sodom. God was going to judge that city and the surrounding ones that had so utterly rebelled against His truth. However, Abraham’s nephew Lot and his family lived in Sodom, so Abraham interceded for Sodom with Yahweh:

• “What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it?” (Gen. 18:24)

God agreed that He wouldn’t. However, Abraham wanted to make sure that Yahweh wouldn’t destroy Sodom, and so he tried to reduce the minimum number of righteous down to 10:

• Then he said, "May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?"

To Abraham’s great relief, Yahweh consented that if there were 10 righteous in Sodom, He wouldn’t destroy the city. However, Abraham’s hopes were dashed:

• Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. (Gen. 19:27-28)

Sodom and the surrounding towns had been utterly consumed! There weren’t even 10 righteous! However, we have no indication that Abraham ever learned that God had spared Lot and his family. The Bible records no further communication between them. Instead, it seems that after the horrific sight of Sodom’s destruction, Abraham pulled up his stakes and moved out of the area (Gen. 20:1-2) to the land of Gerar, where his faith once again lapsed.

It doesn’t seem that God had given him any indication that his prayer for Lot had been answered, despite Sodom’s destruction.

Why didn’t God ever engineer a joyous reunion between Lot and Abraham? Why hadn’t God informed Abraham of His faithfulness? The secret things belong to God, and therefore, there are many questions we can’t answer.

How then was Abraham able to continue walking in faith in view of a God who seemingly brought such tragedy upon his small and dwindling family? Could he trust such a God for his own life? Evidently, he felt he couldn’t. Despite the fact that God had promised that Sarah would give birth to their promised son next year, Abraham bowed to fear and allowed the King of Gerar to take Sarah for his wife.

However, God was faithful and miraculously restored Sarah to her husband Abraham, and Isaac was born as promised.

It was clear that Abraham wasn’t able to understand all of God’s ways. However, he was learning that God is faithful. Consequently, about 10-15 years later, we find a courageous Abraham. He now believed in his God to the extent that he was even willing to sacrifice his son Isaac at God’s bequest.

It is the faithfulness of God that enables us to live with perplexity. However, there is another important piece in the puzzle of living by faith in the midst of great loss and perplexity.

Job had lost everything – family, friends, financial resources, and even his physical well-being. Understandably, he charged God with injustice and unfaithfulness. However, God finally challenged Job’s indictments:

• Then the Lord answered Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. (Job 38:1-3)

Job couldn’t answer even one of God’s many questions. Job learned a humiliating lesson. He now understood that his understanding was very limited, so limited that, he had no basis to bring charges against God. Job, therefore, repented profusely:

• "I am unworthy--how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer--twice, but I will say no more." (Job 40:4-5)

• "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." (Job 42:2-6)

We too speak of things we don’t understand. We fail to see the entire picture. Our problem is that we think we have a wisdom when we really don’t.

Ironically, it is this blind self-confidence that causes us harm. Because we are convinced that we do understand, when we really don’t, we too bring indictments against God, cause ourselves unnecessary grief, and even shipwreck our faith.

There is much that I cannot understand. My dear and faithful friend, hearing voices and suffering from paranoia, recently took his life. I cried out to God, “How could You have allowed such a thing to happen. You could have healed him!” Lacking the bigger picture, I brought my own indictments against God.

Jesus had received word from Mary that her brother Lazarus was dying and that He should come. However, Jesus purposely delayed two days, allowing Lazarus to die. He could have merely spoken a word and Lazarus would have been healed, but He didn’t.

·        So then he told them [His disciples] plainly, "Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him." (John 11:14-15)

However, Mary was perplexed that Jesus had delayed and charged, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:21). However, this death had a happy ending. Lazarus was raised up and many believed and faith restored.

However, many of us are still waiting for our Lazarus to be raised, and we see no indication that this will happen. We have signed our indictments, filed our charges, and they remain unanswered. Consequently, we are tortured by doubts, regrets, anxiety, and bitterness. We do not see any possible resurrection; none is in sight. Trust is our only light, but it seems to have died along with Lazarus.

However, after laying out her charge against Jesus, Mary cried out in faith:

·        But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." (John 11:22).

I trust that my precious friend is with our ever-gracious Savior. Nevertheless, I don’t understand why He allowed this to happen, but I am confident that He has his reasons!

·        Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Finding Meaning within Pain and Perplexity

I think that we become most tormented when we can’t understand our experience of pain and loss when it seems to contradict Scripture. For instance, I love to read about the missionaries. They are my heroes! However, they had experienced enormous loss – children, spouses and even their own lives. Why? They had committed their entire lives to their God and His service, and yet they experienced such loss, despite God’s promise to work all things to their good.

From our point of view, this just shouldn’t be! It seems to violate all of God’s promises, and the apparent contradiction sends us spiraling down into a spiritual vertigo. Job experienced this vertigo. He had lost everything, even though he had given his entire life to his Lord. He was convinced that what he had experienced wasn’t fair, and that God was at fault. Although he never cursed God, he certainly was not lacking in indictments against Him.

And, in a limited sense, Job was right. Although God might not have directly caused Job’s misfortunes, He purposely allowed them to happen! Job therefore was certain that God’s Word had failed, and that God had failed him.

Eventually, Job repented of his accusations against God. Why? It wasn’t that God had given Job a detailed and reasonable explanation of everything God had done. Job never received an explanation for his loss and suffering, but he received something else that sufficed. God revealed to him that his indictments were products of ignorance. He showed Job that Job lacked the wisdom and understanding to make such indictments:

·         Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said:  “Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?  On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone (Job 38:1-6)

Of course, Job could not answer any of these questions. He had been like a first-grader complaining that his math teacher couldn’t teach math. However, God dramatically showed him that he lacked the necessary intelligence and experience to make such charges. Job got the message and repented:

·         “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know… Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:2-6)

Often we become too confident about our level of knowledge. We become convinced that we know more than we actually do know and therefore judge God.

While wisdom and knowledge have an exalted role according to Scripture, we often rely upon our own wisdom more than we should. We are warned against this:

·         Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Contrary to this, we are often told to trust in ourselves and our judgments. However, Scripture cautions against this advice. Job had trusted in his own understanding, but this only deepened his woes. He finally came to the realization that his self-trust had cut him off from his only hope – God.

There are some things that we can’t understand. Scripture warns us of this – that we only see in part. I must admit that I too am troubled about the way God does things and the things He allows to occur. Our beloved nephew just took his own life after battling paranoia for years. He was a believer. Why did God allow this to happen? This troubles me!

Our pastor-friend’s son took his life. His wife died after many painful years of battling cancer, and now the pastor also battles against the same foe. Another pastor-friend died a long and painful death. Both of these men had been men of exemplary character. God, why? If You allowed such torment to befall these godly men, what hope do I have? You want me to trust You, but how can I in light of what I see?

This had been Job dilemma. How could he love and trust God after what had happened to him? He was convinced that he no longer could! However, he subsequently repented of his attitude. What made the difference? It wasn’t that it all suddenly made sense to him. We see no evidence of this! Instead, he came to see that he couldn’t trust his own very limited and juvenile judgments. This understanding once again opened the door to trusting God, once he saw that he could not trust in his own understanding.

Just recently, my knee went bad, and then my back went out. In desperation, I went to the chiropractor, who broke my rib. I subsequently went through a Job-like crisis. I asked, “God, can I really trust You? Will you let me down as you did my pastor-friends?”

Leaning to my own understanding, it seems that God had let me down. But perhaps it was my own understanding that had let me down. I recalled God’s humbling counsel to Job:

·         “Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been shown to you? Have you seen the gates of the deepest darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanses of the earth? Tell me, if you know all this.” (Job 38:16-18)

Truly, there is so much that I do not know! “Lord, humble me and leave me not in the grips of my own feeble and fearful understanding.”

Nevertheless, I think that there is understanding to be had. Our Lord will never allow us to have enough wisdom and understanding so that we need not cry out to Him for more. We will always need to depend upon Him for understanding, and we must. He therefore hides from us the extent of His grace – His responsiveness to our prayers. He did this with Abraham!

Abraham had been granted an exclusive audience with the Lord, who explained that He was about to destroy Sodom because of its great sins. Abraham interceded on behalf of his nephew Lot who lived in Sodom with his family. Finally, he got the Lord to agree that He would not destroy Sodom if there were as few as ten righteous people in the city. However:

·         Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord.  He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace. (Gen. 19:27-28)

We have absolutely no indication that Abraham ever knew that the Lord had rescued Lot and his daughters. Consequently, he never tried to find them. Instead, it seems that Abraham was so stricken by this loss that he had to relocate elsewhere, away from any reminder of his great “loss.”

We are not ready to truly fathom the depth of our Lord’s grace. We cannot handle it. While bleeding to death from a grievous chainsaw injury, I had the most incredible pre-salvation encounter with God. I was utterly filled with His love, joy and peace. I was in ecstasy through the knowledge of His omnipotence and the certainty that He would never leave me. I was miraculously rescued and spent four days recuperating in the hospital. On the second day, my surgeon informed me that I had to begin exercising my hand or I’d loose mobility. However, I blew-off his advice, convinced that God was omnipotent, and therefore, it didn’t matter what I’d do in regards to my recovery.

Consequently, I never regained full mobility. Although I correctly understood that God is omnipotent, I lacked the maturity to correctly apply this knowledge and suffered loss as a result. I leaned on my own limited understanding instead of the word of the expert.

I was not ready for God’s truth. Can we teach a first-grader trigonometry before she learns addition and subtraction? Trig is ridiculous – even dangerous - for those unprepared for it. So too is a comprehensive understanding of God’s ways. Instead, we need to learn from Job and repent in dust and ashes, acknowledging that we speak “of things [we] did not understand, things too wonderful for [us] to know.”

“If the Bible Promotes Immorality and Irrationality, it should be Rejected!”

Many atheists claim that Christians are hypocrites because we defend Biblical teachings, “knowing” that these teachings contradict our conscience, reason and the Bible itself (for example, it’s teachings regarding slavery!). To put it in another way, many atheists charge that the Bible promotes immorality and irrationality, and therefore, it should be discarded.

First of all, I have to admit that not everything that the Bible teaches accords with my moral sense or even my understanding. I consequently struggle to reconcile these areas of tension. I also must admit my bias – I am convinced that the Bible is actually the Word of God. Therefore, the reconciliation that I hope to achieve involves the tweaking of either my interpretation of Scripture or my own moral and intellectual inclinations.

Does admitting perplexity about the Bible’s teachings in one area, while strongly affirming its teachings in another area, make me a hypocrite? I don’t see why it should. Should I reject the Bible because it is not entirely amenable to my attempts to understand it? Certainly not! Perhaps we can answer this question with a parallel question:

• Should we reject science and its findings because it is not entirely amenable to our understanding? Does it make hypocrites out of scientists if they continue to champion science even though it has yielded many counter-intuitive – even counter-science - conclusions?

The consensus view is that sub-atomic particles actually defy our understanding of science – the separation of investigator from what is investigated. In contrast to this, the consensus view is that investigation directly and necessarily impacts the reality (sub-atomic particles) of what is investigated. Does this paradox convert the scientist into a hypocrite? Does it invalidate the entire scientific enterprise? No one has ever leveled this charge against the scientist and for good reason.

Let’s just put aside sub-atomic particles. Science can’t even reconcile the basics, like the nature of light. Is it a wave or a particle? Besides this perplexity, we can’t fathom why it is that some waves kill (gamma waves), others give life, and while others cook (microwaves). And somehow, they all maintain their integrity in the mysterious ether of space as they cris-cross without end.

Science cannot even provide precise definitions for space, time or matter. Does this mean that we reject science? Certainly not! However, the atheist claims that we should reject the Bible for similar reasons – that the facts of the Bible sometimes transcend our understanding.

This is grossly unfair! If we remain in perplexity about the creation and the science that attempts to understand it, how much more should we be awed by its Creator!

Where’s the hypocrisy? Perhaps in the mind of the observer!

The atheist faces an even greater challenge when he claims that the teachings of the Bible contradict what is truly ethical. In order to make such a claim, they would need to have the absolute moral standard against which to measure the Biblical teachings in order to demonstrate that they are in error. However, the atheist has no basis for such standards.

Generally, when the atheist concludes that the Bible is in moral error, it is because he measures the Bible’s teachings against what has come to be generally accepted in today’s Western universities – hardly an objective standard! In other words, if the Bible fails to measure up to the politically correct, university understanding on abortion, this proves that the Bible is in error and should be discarded. It also makes everyone who upholds the Bible a hypocrite.