Things that don’t make sense…

Things that don’t make sense:

1. Why flight attendants give instructions on how to use the inflatable life jacket on a flight from Kansas City to to Los Angeles. It seems these items would be much benefit flying over Kansas wheat fields or the Rockies. Granted, my geography isn’t so good, but maybe they know something I don’t?  (Corollary: why don’t we get parachutes instead?)
2. Why “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing. (As if the English language isn’t confusing enough, even for those of us who grew up with it.)
3. Why a black hat stands for the bad guy and a white hat stands for the good guy. (Undoubtedly, nobody ever consulted the good guys’ wives about the prolific swear words used in keeping those white hats clean.)
4. Why anyone would come up with “Smoking/No Smoking” sections in a restaurant. (Have they never tried to contain the smell from something burning in the oven?  They should come to my house as I could give them ample education…)

Of course there are reasons for all of these, albeit not authentically “reasonable” ones.  The life jacket has more to do with legal ramifications than any good it would do on a landlocked flight; much of the English language lends itself to common usage as well as following any rules; black and white were more about prejudice than artful interpretation, and smoking in any venue…HRUMPH!, don’t get a nurse started on that one!

As if even the best of humanity always makes perfect sense, we then go and blame God for being “unreasonable”: Why can’t I have my own way this time? What can’t good people go to Heaven without all this Jesus stuff? Why did Jesus even have to die for me in the first place? 

The Christian worldview has been criticized as being an unreasonable faith system; in fact, there are those (starting with the so-called Enlightenment Age) that would posit reason and faith being arguably polar opposites at best, and antithetically canceling one or the other out at worst. 

And yet one of the most attractive, although seemingly paradoxical, mysteries of Heaven is that the Christian faith and reason actually go hand in hand quite beautifully.  Like anything of value, it takes a little elbow grease on my part (anything worth doing is worth my effort and persistence), and a teachable openness to a Presence beyond myself (since I am not, in fact, the center of the Universe anyway). Above all, there’s the bold and intriguing invitation:

“‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord…”

Perhaps, just maybe, He knows something about my life’s flight pattern that I’ve missed.

Isaiah 1:18  New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation