A friend of mine on Facebook posted a great status that I thought I’d steal–I mean, share:

Nothing is random in His Kingdom. Everything that happens fits into a pattern for good, to those who love Him. Instead of trying to analyze the intricacies of the pattern, focus your energy on trusting Him and thanking Him at all times!

I try to keep things intellectual here at all times, but there’s something to be said for having a child-like faith that doesn’t need a complicated apologetic defense. The problem with most skeptics that I talk to is that they “psych themselves out,” so to speak.

They look at things like starving children in Africa, the candiru parasite, or anything else they don’t like about the world and conclude, “God didn’t make this. No good god would make a world like this one!” Well, there’s an apologetic defense for that (hint: it’s called “the Fall”), but why do I have to recite it? Yes, there are problems in the world. Making me (or any other Christian apologist) defend God against everything in the world that sucks is “analyzing the intricacies of the pattern.”

Instead, let’s trust God to work it out. The world as we know it is a giant Tower of Siloam. What did Jesus say to those trying to analyze the pattern?

Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. (Lk 13:4-5)

Focusing on minutia for which I readily admit that I don’t have an answer to is beside the point. Instead, let’s fix our eyes on God, who will work all of these things out for the good of his elect (Rom 8:28). This comes back to the real definition of faith: trust. Trust God to be who he has revealed himself to be in Scripture.