When It Doesn’t Make Sense

My nine-year-old son interrupted a conversation between my husband and me. “What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it. You won’t understand.”

“Yes, I will. Tell me.”

My brain assessed the conversation. Prior knowledge, years of being together, adult understanding, and abstract reasoning peppered the discussion. “Daniel, I’m telling you, it really won’t make sense to you. Don’t worry about it.”

I looked in the rearview mirror and his face dropped. He wanted to comprehend. Be included. Understand. Kinda like us and God.

Olivia Lane’s song, Make Faith, has a line that reads, “So Jesus if it can’t make sense right now, let it make faith.”

The hard parts of our stories don’t make sense. The twists and turns confuse and bewilder. We aren’t alone, though. Many people in the Bible experienced this same feeling. And what did they do? They trusted. Obeyed. And made faith.

Make Faith: Ruth

I love the story of Ruth. She left her people and married an Israelite named Mahlon. After several years, her husband died, as did his brother. Both women stayed with their mother-in-law, Naomi, because she had also lost her husband.

Naomi heard that God’s hand of provision was on her people and planned to set off for Judah. She went to Ruth and Orpah, and said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands? Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

Orpah left Naomi after these words.  But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Ruth later meets one of Naomi’s relatives, Boaz, and they eventually marry. Years of loss, doubts, questions, and unknowns eventually led to being amongst those in the lineage of Jesus the Messiah.

When it didn’t make sense, Ruth chose to ‘make faith’.

Make Faith: Hannah

Then there’s Hannah. Loved deeply by her husband, but barren. He took another wife named Peninnah (And just for the record, more than one wife always creates drama). She produced many children and regularly taunted Hannah.

Year after year, the mistreatment continued. At the tabernacle for the yearly sacrifice, Hannah finally broke. In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

Hannah soon conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, which means God has heard. Once he was weaned, she brought him to the tabernacle, and gave him to the Lord.

As a mom, the thought of leaving my only child with a man I barely knew, living in another town, terrifies me. But Hannah trusted the Lord. If he made good on his promise, she would make good on hers.

Samuel grew up in the temple, under the tutelage of Eli the priest. Hannah visited her son yearly and brought him clothing and other necessities. In time, God used her son mightily. Between the time of the judges and the first two kings of Israel, his voice offered sound doctrine to the people. He confronted Saul, anointed David, and modeled obedience for the people of Israel.

Did Hannah know all this ahead of time? No. For years, it didn’t make sense, but Hannah obediently and blindly followed God and chose to ‘make faith’.

Jesus

As our pastor says, Jesus is God in skin. He left the throne of heaven to live as a human in this broken world. He was both fully God and fully man. He endured temptation and felt pain. Both joy and sorrow welled up inside his heart. He experienced deep love, and ultimate betrayal. Yet, through it all, he never sinned.

He chose to become the sacrifice for the whole world by dying on the cross. He carried our sins, even though he never committed a single one.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus spoke to his disciples before he left for prayer, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”  Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”

He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”

Even though Jesus knew his sacrifice was the reason he came to earth, he still spoke to God about the hardship he was facing. His physical humanity fully submitted to the supreme power of Godship within him. And when it didn’t make sense to us, Jesus willingly chose to die to make our faith complete.

Let It Make Faith

Many parts of life make no sense to our finite human brains. The whys and what-ifs overwhelm us. And like my son, we come to God and ask, “What does that mean?”

But God. He has all the prior knowledge, years of sovereignty, understanding, and reasons we may never understand on this side of heaven for doing things the way he does. Looking back, we can catch glimpses of the whys in the lives of Ruth, Hannah, and Jesus. And yet, without that benefit, they continued forward. Making faith.

We, too, must trust God’s leading. No matter how difficult or confusing, may the words from Olivia Lane’s song be the echo of our hearts as we trust God more and more. “So Jesus if it can’t make sense right now, let it make faith.”

(for more on faith: Bald Eagles of the Faith – Inspire A Fire – Christy Bass Adams)

© Christy Bass Adams, April 2025, All images from Canva