When It Doesn't Make Sense

Melissa, my daughter came up to me and asked me about the passage in Hebrews chapter 4 where it talks about the children of Israel in the Old Testament not entering into rest of God because of their unbelief and disobedience. She needed a clarification on the meaning of the passage.

I explained that the 'rest' in that passage referred to the rest from their journeying in the wilderness when they entered into the promised Canaan land. They did not believe that God could get them through the wilderness. They were always striving and murmuring. As a result they could not enter the Promised Land.

I further explained that often times the stories in the Bible have application to our daily living. When we have faith and are obedient to God's ways, we will constantly be in the rest of God. We will not be perturbed by the storms around us. For those that are striving, the source of rest is in Jesus who said, 'Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest'.

A further application was that we are pilgrims on this earth and through faith and obedience, we will enter into the eternal rest of God from our labours on earth when our life is over.

Melissa said that the explanation I gave on the passage made a lot of sense to her. I told her that I can make sense of what the Bible says but at a time like this, I can't make sense of whatever was happening around us right now. How does one make any sense out of the death of someone he loves dearly. It doesn't make sense to me why bad things happen to good people. It doesn't make sense to me why there is so much injustice in the world we see today. All these generic 'why' questions are always having a personal relevance to it. I'm having difficulty trying to connect all the dots to see the bigger picture.

In a time when everything around us doesn't make any sense, I guess the only thing sensible thing that we can do is to cling on tenaciously to the thing that does make some sense and that is the Word of God. We wait for the rest of the things to fall in line. 'That makes sense', she said.

During our conversation, the thought occurred to me that Kathryn is now enjoying the eternal rest of God after having completed all that she could have done. She has been obedient and has held steady her faith unto the end. She has earned her rest from all her labours on earth because she has completed whatever God had purposed for her life. Maybe, that might make some sense out of this situation, in a sense. At least it might help to connect some of the dots.

11 November 2010