To think or not to think…

Romans 11:33…Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!

Indeed, God’s ways are beyond tracing out. I have tried, and continue to try tracing them out, and though I come up with a multitude of thoughts and angles, I’m never completely sure if any of them have merit. The question then becomes ‘is it worth attempting to understand’ the whys and wherefores of life and of God or would we be better served by just accepting whatever comes and not doing any probing for answers and/or understanding?

When you read the book of Job, I guess you could say that everyone was trying to put reason to circumstances. In the end, God basically said ‘just trust me’. Right?

I do think that the best case scenario would be that we ‘accept’ our circumstances gracefully and with humility, but it also seems appropriate that we should be introspective? How else might we uncover the error of our ways, if indeed whatever circumstances we find ourselves in are, in actuality, self-induced?

So, should we be looking for God behind the circumstances, or should we just be looking at ourselves? Or should we do both?

I suppose that would depend on the circumstances themselves. For example, if there is a tornado in your neighborhood and it misses many homes, but blows yours to smithereens? This would seem like a scenario that is completely beyond your control…you might even call it an ‘act of God’, therefore it could be a good time to apply ‘accept gracefully and humbly’. After all, what are the alternatives here? Blame yourself? Blame God? Blaming yourself, if you aren’t the responsible party, is self defeating…and blaming God is ALWAYS a bad idea. How do you benefit from that? Of course, if a tornado does blow your house to smithereens, you might want to at least ponder your relationship with God….just in case something is very askew.

On the other hand, suppose you are texting while driving and cause an accident? This would definitely be a time for introspection, and hopefully repentance and self improvement. After all, God didn’t cause the accident, you did. But what if you were in the other car and suffered severe injuries due to the negligence of the texting driver….what would your thinking be then?