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It Doesn't Add Up

There is a sentence in my Daily Devotional that sticks in my mind.

Sometimes the arithmetic of life does not add up.

I am reminded of a line from the old Jetsons TV show when I was a kid, "That does not compute". Questions, like Where is God when things are bad? What is God doing? The things going on around us, do not add up, they don't make sense, they don't compute. Have people lost their minds? They certainly are going in the wrong direction spiritually and now in many cases, naturally.

Sometimes people seem as dumb as sheep without a shepherd.

How long will God tolerate some things? Why does he allow them to happen at all? Like Disney's Forky, who has a question, a lot of them, my answer is

"I don't know!"

Frances Ridley Havergal had this to say: “In perplexities-when we cannot understand what is going on around us-let us be calmed and steadied and made patient by the thought that what is hidden from us in not hidden from Him.”

We are not supposed to know everything. What we are supposed to do is trust and have some faith, make that a lot of faith, and know one thing for sure God knows what is going on.

Psalm 94

1 The Lord is a God who avenges.

O God who avenges, shine forth.

2 Rise up, Judge of the earth;

pay back to the proud what they deserve.

3 How long, Lord, will the wicked,

how long will the wicked be jubilant?

4 They pour out arrogant words;

all the evildoers are full of boasting.

5 They crush your people, Lord;

they oppress your inheritance.

6 They slay the widow and the foreigner;

they murder the fatherless.

7 They say, “The Lord does not see;

the God of Jacob takes no notice.”

8 Take notice, you senseless ones among the people;

you fools, when will you become wise?

9 Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?

Does he who formed the eye not see?

10 Does he who disciplines nations not punish?

Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge?

11 The Lord knows all human plans;

he knows that they are futile.

Frances Ridley Havergal