I posted a comment to a friend’s blog today, and before the blog would submit my comment, I had to type in a random word to prove I’m not some kind of maliciously minded spam robot. The word it told me to type was “t-o-n-e-f”.

Now – life sometimes feels crazy just like that – having to do something seemingly nonsensical when what we are wanting to do seems perfectly reasonable. Yet, life often doesn’t seem to make sense. Can you relate?

Here are common examples:

• work that doesn’t make sense?
• relationships that don’t make sense?
• health crises that don’t make sense?
• financial conditions that don’t make sense?
• behavior, woundedness, silence, and pain… ?

A big part of the problem is that our life makes sense to us only on our terms, from our perspective. We don’t know what we don’t know. God, of course calls us to live not by sight – by what makes sense from what WE see – but by faith. What do the nonsensical things of life look like when seen through a lens of Christ confidence?

• God working on us, when we are consumed with circumstance?
• His bringing revelation to how we try to meet our own needs instead of relying on Him as our Source?
• relationships in which He wants us to be His instrument instead of using someone else for our own benefit?
• a Father’s discipline of a child who knows much more about what we want than what we need (cake for breakfast!)?

Scripture says that we make our plans, but God directs our steps (cf. Prov. 16:9). It doesn’t say to not make plans. It doesn’t say your effort or intentions are bad. In fact, in Christ, what He desires for you is the most satisfying reality of your soul, even when we don’t know how we get from “here” to “there”.

Today, as God calls you to depend on Him – whether circumstances are desperate or not, whether you feel lacking or not, whether you have a plan or not – what would it look like to walk in faith? What would it be to move forward anticipating His grace for where He leads? How might you reorient your expectations from circumstance to Christ-confident hope?

…and then – through that wonderful act of worship known as submission – He can bring clarity to the nonsense and shed light amidst darkness. And in that growing radiance of revelation, in that place where we start to see His love and sufficiency more clearly by the light of His grace, we find ourselves amidst the stuff of an otherwise nonsensical world.

So – to all the nonsensical moments of today and tomorrow, in our work and relationships and ministries and trials and triumphs that don’t make sense to us in the moment – I place my trust in the otherworldly sovereignty of a loving Father, and yell the new battle cry of eternally focused faith beyond the baffling temporality of this world…

” T O N E F ! ! ! ! “

Or maybe simply, “I will trust You, Father, in this, even despite this, for my good in Christ by grace alone.”

You are loved, saints. Hang with Him and us in the journey. Until we chat again, I remain with you…

Ridiculously graced,
-mike.

Question: Where are you trusting God through something that doesn’t quite make sense?