Making Sense Out of Life

I tend to be a “two plus two must equal four” kind of person. I like things to make sense. What I perceive to be acts of stupidity drive me to distraction. I want things to “make sense” in the “best sense” of that phrase.

That may not be a bad approach to life if I’m talking about what the bank ATM does when I deposit a check. Or how the cash register at the grocery store accounts for my purchases. Or how my fellow commuters in Atlanta respond to traffic laws. Or even how I get from text to sermon or lesson.

But taken too far into my heart of faith – I’m not all that confident that God has called me to a life that “makes sense.” There is that troubling idea in 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 about “the foolishness of the message preached” that is supposed to be the framework for my life. If you think about it, preaching “Christ crucified” doesn’t “make sense” when you’re living in a culture that demands “signs” and “wisdom.” But is what Paul is committed to doing.

In the introductory section to Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir, Stanley Hauerwas speaks to this challenge by saying, “I have, moreover, tried to live a life I hope is unintelligible if the God we Christians worship does not exist.” In a bit of a paradox, that “makes sense” to me. Faith in God creates an approach to life that is, without doubt, “senseless” unless God is really who He claims to be.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” I’m called to live might make me love my enemies rather than getting even with them. It might even cause me to be a generous giver of resources rather than saving them for my own rainy day. It might challenge me to be more reflective about the privilege of where I was born. After all, becoming a Christian where I was born was a lot easier than it would have been had I been born in Tehran. Recognizing that privilege, I might even become more understanding of the non-Christian world. Who knows – I could start praying that the geo-political decisions of my own government would quit making it so easy for Muslims to dismiss Christianity as nothing more than an extension of American foreign policy.

The “unintelligible life if God doesn’t exist” is going to call me to realize that saying “Jesus is Lord” is a call for absolute allegiance to this Nazarene as Lord. It probably isn’t going to make sense all the time – but it will make sense to God.

I’m probably going to always look at the check I get when eating out. I’ll always want it to “add up” and “make sense.” But when it comes to the tip – I want to be viewed as living an “unintelligible life” – even when the service isn’t that good. That’s a starting place for a guy whose brain loves for life to “make sense.”