My Job Is Not to Understand, but to Be Faithful
There are some things about this life we simply do not know.
We don't know how long we're going to be here. We don't know what will eventually take us out. We don't know when it will happen, where we'll be, or who will be standing beside us when it does.
We make plans five, ten, twenty years into the future while knowing almost nothing about tomorrow.
And the deeper questions are even harder.
Why do we suffer?
Why do some people seem to live long, productive lives while others struggle from beginning to end?
Why does one person recover while another doesn't?
Why does one family seem to catch every break while another gets hit again and again?
And then there are questions for which any easy spiritual answer almost feels insulting.
Childhood cancer.
Really, God?
A child needs to go through that? And the parents have to stand beside a hospital bed and watch it happen?
Jeez Louise—was being boiled in oil not available?
I don't say that to mock God. I say it because sometimes our attempts to make suffering sound reasonable are more offensive than simply admitting:
I don't understand.
Maybe faith isn't supposed to explain everything.
Maybe faith begins where explanations end.
Job wanted answers. Habakkuk questioned God. David repeatedly asked, "How long, O Lord?" Even Jesus cried from the cross:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
—Matthew 27:46
Scripture doesn't pretend that faithful people never ask why.
But Scripture also doesn't promise that every why will receive an answer.
God's response to Job wasn't a detailed explanation of why everything happened. Instead, God revealed something much larger: Job could not see enough of reality to understand the whole story.
Neither can I.
I see this moment.
God sees what I cannot.
And that brings me to something I'm learning:
My job is not to understand.
My job is to be faithful.
Faithfulness doesn't mean pretending tragedy makes sense.
It doesn't mean calling evil good.
It doesn't mean smiling through suffering and saying, "Everything happens for a reason," when my heart is screaming that none of this seems reasonable at all.
Faithfulness means I refuse to make my trust in God dependent upon my ability to understand God.
"For we walk by faith, not by sight."
—2 Corinthians 5:7
That's an extraordinary statement when you really think about it.
Not by sight.
Not by evidence that everything is working out the way I hoped.
Not because I understand the plan.
Not because today's circumstances make sense.
By faith.
Because eventually life will hand every one of us something our intellect cannot solve.
Loss.
Disease.
Betrayal.
Failure.
A phone call we never wanted.
A goodbye we weren't ready to say.
And if my peace requires understanding everything that happens to me, eventually this world will destroy my peace.
There has to be something deeper.
Faithfulness.
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him."
—Job 13:15
That's not comfortable faith.
That's faith with dirt under its fingernails.
That's someone saying:
I don't understand You.
I don't understand this.
I wouldn't have chosen this.
I don't even know how this could possibly become something good.
But I'm still here.
I'm still praying.
I'm still loving.
I'm still serving.
I'm still getting up.
I'm still trusting.
I'm still walking.
Because my assignment was never to understand the entire journey.
My assignment was to remain faithful while walking it.
And perhaps one of the greatest prayers we can ever offer isn't, "God, explain this to me."
Maybe it's:
God, I don't understand this.
And perhaps I never will.
But don't let what I cannot understand
destroy what I know in my heart.
Give me enough faith for today.
Enough courage for the next step.
Enough humility to admit that I cannot see the whole picture.
And when life gives me questions with no answers,
teach me to stop demanding certainty
and simply remain faithful.
Because I don't know how much time I have.
I don't know what tomorrow brings.
I don't know how my story ends.
But I know what I'm called to do until it does.
Be faithful.
