Friday Read: When God's Ways Don't Make Sense

God told Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22). The command made no sense. Isaac was the son of promise, the miracle child born to Sarah when she was ninety years old. God had explicitly promised that through Isaac, Abraham's descendants would be as numerous as the stars. Now God was commanding Abraham to kill him? How would the promises be fulfilled if Isaac died? It contradicted everything God had said.

Yet Abraham obeyed. He rose early, traveled three days to Mount Moriah, built an altar, bound his son, and raised the knife. The text is stark: Abraham "reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son" (Genesis 22:10). He was actually going to do it. Only when the knife was raised did God intervene, providing a ram as substitute sacrifice.

This story disturbs modern readers. What kind of God tests people by commanding child sacrifice? What kind of faith requires such extreme obedience? But Abraham's test reveals something crucial about trust: it's only real when it persists despite confusion. Anyone can trust God when his commands make sense. Abraham trusted when they didn't.

Hebrews explains Abraham's reasoning: "Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death" (Hebrews 11:19). Abraham didn't understand how God would fulfill his promises if Isaac died. But he trusted that God would somehow make it work - even if it required resurrection. He couldn't see the path, but he trusted the God who promised.

This is the nature of faith. If you could see the whole plan, you wouldn't need trust. If every command made immediate sense, you wouldn't be exercising faith. Trust is precisely what's required when God's ways don't make sense to your limited understanding. You don't trust what you can comprehend fully; you trust who you know is trustworthy.

Isaiah addressed this: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). The gap between human understanding and divine wisdom is infinite. God sees what you can't see, knows what you don't know, understands what you can't comprehend. His ways will often not make sense to you.

This creates the central challenge of faith: will you obey when you don't understand? Will you trust when the command seems to contradict the promise? Will you follow when the path doesn't make sense? Or will you demand that God explain himself before you obey?

Many Christians treat faith like negotiation. God gives a command, and we ask for clarification: "But God, if I do this, how will that work out? If I obey here, what about this other thing? If I take this step, can you guarantee this outcome?" We want to see the whole staircase before we take the first step. We want understanding before trust.

But God usually works differently. He gives one step at a time, requiring trust for each step before revealing the next. He told Abraham to leave his homeland without telling him the destination (Genesis 12:1). He told Moses to confront Pharaoh without explaining the ten plagues that would follow. He told Joshua to march around Jericho without explaining how that would topple walls. Obey first. Understanding comes later, if at all.

This is uncomfortable for modern people who value control, certainty, and complete information before making decisions. We research extensively, analyze options, gather data, calculate risks. We want to make informed decisions based on thorough understanding. And that's appropriate for many things. But faith operates differently.

Faith trusts the Person when you can't trace his purposes. It obeys the command when you can't see the outcome. It follows the leading when the destination is unclear. It says "yes" to God before understanding how everything will work out. This isn't blind faith - it's faith in God's character despite limited understanding of his methods.

Job experienced this profoundly. He lost everything - children, wealth, health - and demanded explanation from God. When God finally spoke, he didn't explain why Job suffered. Instead, he asked Job dozens of questions about creation's complexities: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?... Have you journeyed to the springs of the sea?... Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades?" (Job 38:4, 16, 31). The message was clear: if you can't understand how I run the universe, how can you expect to understand my purposes in your suffering?

Job's response is instructive: "I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted... Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know" (Job 42:2-3). He didn't get explanation. He got encounter with God that made explanation unnecessary. When you truly know God's character, you can trust his ways even when you don't understand them.

If God's current leading doesn't make sense to you, you're in good company. Abraham didn't understand. Moses didn't understand. Job didn't understand. None of them received complete explanation before they were required to trust. What they had was relationship with God that made trust possible despite limited understanding.

So the question isn't "Does this make sense?" The question is "Do I trust God's character enough to obey when it doesn't?" Your understanding will always be limited. His wisdom is always infinite. Trust him even when - especially when - you can't figure it out. That's what faith is.