what I'm reading: not needing to make sense of it from in tandem

When bad things happen, I try to work out why. This isn't just when big things go wrong, but also during the small inconveniences of life.

Why can't I find a parking spot when we're already late for school? Why did our car battery go flat? Why have I got a cold? What is God trying to teach me? As you can imagine, asking "why?" can get very exhausting.

The following words jumped out at me when in tandem arrived in my inbox last Monday. They're from one of my favourite books, Respectable Sins, by one of my favourite authors, Jerry Bridges, introduced by Nicole :

Bridges actually says that we don't have to work out the exact way that God might use a painful event, but we:

...are to give God thanks that He will use the situation in some way to develop our Christian character. We don't need to speculate as to how He might use it, for His ways are often mysterious and beyond our understanding. So by faith in the promise of God in Rom 8:28-29, we obey the command of 1 Thess 5:18 to give thanks in all circumstances.

I've been trying to remember this. When the traffic lights are red, or I break my favourite mug, or my child wakes up vomiting, I don't need to know why. What I do need to know is that God is sovereign, wise and good. Instead of trusting my ability to figure out the answer to the question "why?", I need to trust in Him.

Brought to you courtesy of in tandem.