“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” — Proverbs 3:5

We long for life to be ordered and predictable.

After tragedy strikes, we often send condolences—and rightly so. But if we’re honest, many of us also feel an immediate inner pull to huddle together and ask, “What really happened?” We’re hungry for insider information because deep down, we believe that knowledge will give us control. If we can understand why something happened, we convince ourselves we can prevent it from happening to us.

When a teenager dies unexpectedly, there’s a desperate search for answers. If it was an undetected heart defect, we might resolve to schedule more frequent checkups or avoid overexertion. If it was drunk driving, we may instinctively assign blame and feel reassured that by parenting differently we could guarantee a safer outcome. If the tragedy was suicide, the ache for answers runs even deeper. We look for causes—was it mental illness? concussion from sports? a failure of love from the community?

Why do we do this? Because we are desperate to order the chaos. Just like Adam and Eve in the Garden, we are uncomfortable living in dependence on the Lord. Instead, we want to be in control. We want to believe that if we make the right moves, we can secure the outcomes we desire.

Larry Crabb observes:

“Fallen people (including redeemed ones) want desperately to believe that there’s a certain kind of order to life, a reasonableness and predictability that can give us confidence in expecting desired results from responsible actions. Billiard balls move in a direction determined entirely by the force and angle with which they are hit. Isn’t that how all of life works? If we raise our kids properly, they will turn out right. If we tithe faithfully, we’ll enjoy financial blessing. If we spend time in His Word, God will clearly reveal to us what we are to do in any situation. I sometimes wonder if the most difficult reality to face about existence is its chaotic unpredictability.”
(Understanding Who You Are, Kindle Locations 621-625)

A predictable world would not require faith. It would only require conformity. Our relationship with God would become transactional: “I’ll do my part, God, and You owe me a good marriage, obedient children, fulfilling work, a peaceful retirement—and heaven thrown in for good measure.”

But life of faith is something entirely different. Faith calls us to place trust in God, not in our ability to engineer outcomes. It means surrendering our demand for answers and certainty. It means accepting that while we work diligently and love faithfully, the outcomes belong to Him.

If He truly is God, wouldn’t we want His ways to be better than ours and His plans greater than what we could ask or imagine?