She’s 7 months pregnant, it’s 2 am, her back is killing her, she’s starving, and suddenly there is only ONE thing that will make her happy. Pickles. Specifically, pickles and peanut butter. It doesn’t matter that never before in her life has she eaten or even desired to eat pickles and peanut butter, at this moment, they are the two most important things in the world. So what does she do? She wakes up her husband, and after a bit of confusion, he puts on a pair of sweatpants and sneakers, and heads to the car in search of pickles and peanut butter. Does it make sense to him? Not at all. He has been married to this woman for 10 years, and at no point in the entire duration of their marriage has she ever eaten pickles and peanut butter. In fact, up until this very moment he was almost certain that she despised pickles. But, it didn’t have to make sense. She wanted it, she was going to get it, and that was that. He made a promise to take care of her and to love her, an undying commitment to this person, and sometimes a promise, sometimes love, looks a lot like pickles and peanut butter at 2 AM.

You may find yourself wondering if you’ve accidentally signed up for an email listing about prenatal care, but rest assured you’re in the right place. Because a loving husband’s desperate search for pickles and peanut butter can actually teach us a lot about our walk with Christ. 

In the ninth chapter of the book of John, Jesus heals a blind man. Unfortunately for the blind man, Jesus does not just wave his hand and the man begins to sing “I can see clearly now.” The cliffnotes version of the story is that, if the man wanted to experience sight, he had to willingly let a complete stranger spit in the dirt, and rub the resulting mud on his eyes. It makes no sense, to say the least. When the wedding ran out of wine, Jesus told the servants to fill their jars with water. How would getting more water help with a shortage of wine? Then came the miracle and water became wine. The ways of God often seem blatantly nonsensical, and rarely make sense. But God never said His ways have to make sense, did He? In fact, in Isaiah 55:8-9, He says:

“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways… As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 In Proverbs 3:5, He tells us to trust in Him and to NOT lean on what we can understand. 

There are times in this life, we simply will not understand what God is doing. His timing will not make any sense, it will seem like we are past the point of no return. The things He seemingly asks of us will be more difficult than we think we can bear. There will be seasons in this life that we question if He is leading us whatsoever.  There are times we will kick, and scream, and cry, and seek Him with all we have, and still remain confused. But if we have to understand, if it has to make sense to us, is it true obedience and love? When God seems silent, when things don’t make sense, when we don’t understand, will we still lift our hands in worship? Will we still live according to the Word? Will we still prayer and open our Bibles? Will we still walk step for step with Him to the best of our ability? Will we get up at 2 AM to go on an errand we don’t understand, for the sake of our love and a promise we made, for our undying commitment to the personhood of Christ? My hope is that in spite of the difficulty, we would choose to answer with a resounding yes, and trust in His goodness. Because if He is truly an infinite God, there must be more we don't understand about Him than that which our finite human minds can CAN understand. If there's one thing we can know, He is good, and He is love. Rest in that.

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