When God's ways don't make sense

Have you ever found yourself in a season of life where nothing made sense? Where circumstances seemed chaotic, confusing, or completely counter to what you expected? If you're honest, you've probably whispered—or shouted—"God, what in the world are You doing?"

We've all been there. Those moments when God's ways seem utterly incomprehensible, when His timing feels off, when His methods appear questionable. Yet it's precisely in these moments that we're invited into a deeper trust, a more profound faith.

The Problem with Our Perspective
Isaiah 55:8-9 captures this tension beautifully: "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."

This isn't God being cryptic for the sake of mystery. It's a fundamental reality about the nature of divine wisdom versus human understanding. We see moments; God sees movements. We see events; God sees the whole story. We operate with limited information and temporal perspective; God operates from eternity with complete knowledge.

The closest we usually come to understanding God's ways is through hindsight. Looking back, we can sometimes connect the dots and see how that painful season prepared us, how that closed door led to a better opening, how that wilderness wandering strengthened our faith. But in the moment? We're often completely lost.

A 200-Year Plan
Consider the remarkable story found in Isaiah 44-45. God speaks through the prophet Isaiah about a man named Cyrus—specifically naming him—declaring that this individual would be His instrument to free the Jewish people from Babylonian captivity and allow them to return home and rebuild their temple.

Here's what makes this extraordinary: Isaiah prophesied this approximately 200 years before Cyrus became King of Persia. At the time of Isaiah's prophecy, Babylon wasn't even a major world power. Assyria dominated the geopolitical landscape. Yet God was already declaring that Babylon would conquer His people, and then later, a Persian king named Cyrus would defeat Babylon and set the captives free.

Think about that timeline. Two centuries of human history—wars, kingdoms rising and falling, countless individual lives lived and ended—all moving toward a moment God had already planned and announced.

God didn't just predict who would accomplish His purposes; He described how it would happen. He spoke of breaking down "gates of bronze"—a specific reference to the bronze gates that protected Babylon where the Euphrates River flowed under the city walls. Historical accounts tell us that the Persian army diverted the river and entered through those very gates, finding them mysteriously open or easily breached.

When God Uses Unexpected Instruments
Here's where the story takes an interesting turn. You'd think the Jewish people, living in captivity and learning that God had declared their freedom centuries earlier, would be universally thrilled. Yet Isaiah 45:9-11 reveals something surprising: some Israelite's actually argued with God about His choice to use Cyrus—a Gentile king—to accomplish their deliverance.

"Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it?" God asks. "Do you question what I do for my children? Do you give me orders about the works of my hand?"

Their objection reveals a deeply human tendency: we want God to work according to our expectations and preferences. Perhaps they expected God to raise up a Jewish deliverer, as He had done with the judges of old. Perhaps their pride couldn't accept liberation through a foreign king. Perhaps they simply thought they knew better than God how salvation should look.

Sound familiar?

How often do we pray for something specific, then become frustrated when God answers differently than we anticipated? We want healing, and God sends endurance. We want immediate relief, and God orchestrates a longer journey that develops our character. We want Him to use certain people or methods, and He chooses instruments we never would have selected.

The uncomfortable truth is this: if God's purpose is for our good—and Scripture assures us it always is—does it really matter whether He uses saved or unsaved people, expected or unexpected circumstances, comfortable or uncomfortable methods?

The Mystery of Divine Hiddenness
Isaiah 45:15 acknowledges something we all experience: "Truly you are a God who has been hiding himself, the God and Savior of Israel." God's ways are often mysterious. He doesn't always reveal what He's doing, why He's doing it, or how He plans to accomplish it.

Imagine if God gave you a detailed preview of your life—not just the victories and blessings, but every trial, every heartbreak, every moment of suffering you'd need to endure to reach those mountaintop experiences. Would you really want that knowledge? Most of us would be paralyzed by fear or simply give up before starting.

God's hiddenness is often an act of mercy. He asks us to trust Him one step at a time, one day at a time, without requiring us to bear the weight of knowing everything that's coming.

What We Can Know
While we may not understand God's specific plans for our circumstances, we can anchor ourselves in three unchanging truths:

First, God has been preparing for your current moment long before you arrived there. Just as He was orchestrating events centuries before Cyrus took the throne, He's been at work in your life, positioning pieces you cannot yet see. What feels sudden to you has been on His radar all along.

Second, God will use whatever instruments He chooses to accomplish His purposes. He's not limited by our preferences or expectations. He might work through people you'd never expect, circumstances that seem counterproductive, or methods that appear unconventional. Trust His choice of tools.

Third, God's character remains constant even when His ways seem confusing. He is always good, always faithful, always working for the ultimate benefit of His children. His love doesn't fluctuate based on whether we understand His methods.

The Point of the Mystery
Why did God tell the Israelite's so far in advance about Babylon and Cyrus? Isaiah 45:22-24 reveals His purpose: "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth. For I am God and there is no other."

God wanted His people—and all nations—to recognize that no other god could do what He does. The false gods they'd been worshiping couldn't predict the future, let alone bring it about. Only the God of Israel could declare the end from the beginning and then orchestrate history to fulfill His word.

Remarkably, after the Babylonian captivity, Israel never again fell into national idolatry. The lesson stuck. They finally understood: there is no God but the Lord.

Living with Divine Mystery
You won't always understand what God is doing in your life. There will be seasons that feel chaotic, decisions that seem wrong, timing that appears terrible. In those moments, you have a choice: will you trust God's character even when you can't trace His hand?

The Israelite's who complained about Cyrus missed an important point: the identity of their deliverer mattered far less than the fact of their deliverance. God was keeping His promise. He was bringing them home. The details of how He chose to do it were His prerogative.

When you face your own incomprehensible seasons, remember this: you don't need all the details to believe and trust. You just need to know who your God is. He's the One who sees the end from the beginning, who works all things together for good, who never abandons His children.

Before every knee bows and every tongue confesses that He is Lord, you have the privilege of bowing now—not in defeat, but in surrender to a God whose ways are higher, whose thoughts are deeper, and whose love is more faithful than you could ever imagine.

Even when—especially when—you don't understand.