Women’s Ministry Minute
June 3, 2020
With Bonnie Kile
When God Doesn’t Make Sense is the title of a book written by Dr. James Dobson that was recommended to me when my husband died suddenly of a heart attack when he was 42 and I was 39. We had two boys age 17 and 14 at the time. This book tells many stories of people who have experienced a tragedy that cannot be understood. That’s where I was on that horrible day in 1993. Nothing about my husband’s death made any sense to me. I decided that God made a mistake- he was supposed to take me!! But he didn’t- so I had to come to terms with it. What do we do when we don’t understand what God is doing? During my loss the scripture I leaned on was 2 Cor. 4:16-18, “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” Our “light and momentary troubles” - are you kidding me Paul? Your troubles could hardly be called light and momentary- and mine didn’t seem light and momentary either. But Paul says we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen. My “seen” at that time was not so good. My children’s father was gone, our main breadwinner was gone - I was working but my gross salary was $26,000. What would I do? How could I make this new life work? I prayed a lot. I begged God a lot. He answered my prayers and took care of me and the boys. Today they are wonderful men, husbands and dads. But at the time I was going through this I was so scared. But I kept turning to God. What about for me and you today? All of our lives have been turned upside down. None of this new life we’re in makes any sense to us. Why is this happening God? Christians all over the world are praying for this disease to be taken away but so far God has not removed it and there is suffering in every country. Why? Dr. Dobson wrote, “If you believe God is obligated to explain himself to us, ...examine the following scriptures, Proverbs 25:2, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter.” Isaiah 45:15, “Truly you are a God who hides himself.” So what do we do? We trust in God. As Paul said, “so we fix our eyes on what is unseen” - on our God. We don’t have to understand. We don’t have to agree. I certainly didn’t agree with God’s decision to make me a widow at 39! But God doesn’t need to explain himself to us or get our approval. Our only job in this life is to trust him. Us telling God how to run the universe is as ridiculous as a toddler telling her daddy how to run his family!! There will always be times in life where things happen to us - around us - that we don’t understand- things we don’t like (like the disease hovering over our world, the violence in our society, our own personal losses, etc), but it’s in those times that we fix our eyes on God and trust in Him. I think this verse says it best, Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” All my love to you dear sisters,
Bonnie Kile