God is all-wise. All his ways are perfect, accomplishing the ends for which he conceived them (Ps. 18: 30; Ps. 92: 15). All that he does, he does well. All that he plans and purposes he perfectly accomplishes (Isa. 25: 1). There are no “oops” moments with our omniscient and omnipotent God (Ps. 147: 5). God’s sovereignty is the bedrock on which we stand when nothing seems to make sense.

And yet, this God whose ways are perfect graciously receives us when we are perplexed by his perfect ways. He lets us come storming into his throne room armed with a thousand loaded questions. He lets us have a full-blown meltdown when we are exhausted from trying to rationally understand that which is beyond our reasoning. In fact, he does not just let us do these things. He welcomes us into his presence. He listens with infinite patience as his children wrestle with the perplexities of his ways.

Job’s Experience
Long before Christ, the mediator between God and man, walked the earth, God’s Spirit enabled God’s people to see dimly the kind of God they served — the God who is both perfect in all his ways and perfectly patient toward the perplexed.

In the midst of excruciating loss and sanity-shaking silence, Job said the following:

“Today also my complaint is bitter; my hand is heavy on account of my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his seat! I would lay my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments. I would know that he would answer me and understand what he would say to me. Would he contend with me in the greatness of his power? No; he would pay attention to me” (Job 23: 2–7).

Job was desperate for a place to meet with God, a place where he might hash out with God the doubts and desperation engulfing him. As much as he sounds like a pessimist, G. K. Chesterton makes an argument that he was actually the epitome of an optimist:

“He shakes the pillars of the world and strikes insanely at the heavens; he lashes the stars, but it is not to silence them; it is to make them speak.”

Job knew God was good and trustworthy. He felt terrible dissonance between what he knew and what he was experiencing. He longed to come into God’s presence to have a hearing with him. He also trusted that God had good at the end of his horrific season of losses. He said confidently in the midst of crippling pain, “But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold” (Job 23: 10).

Job’s honest weeping and wailing before God were evidences of his faith not his lack of faith. Job learned to trust that, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, “The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”

Our Experiences
Though we live on the other side of the cross, the finite still struggles to understand the infinite (Isa. 55: 8–9). Our Father leads us straight toward home on what feel like circuitous paths.

We can hold two things at once: we can know that God’s ways are perfect and be perfectly perplexed at them. Even more than that, we are invited into the very throne room of God (Heb. 4: 14–16). We have access to the place for which Job ached because of the mediator for which Job cried (Job 9: 33–25).

We can confidently say with David, “This God– his way is perfect” because we know the perfect One who died for an imperfect people (Ps. 18: 30). We can say with Paul, “We are perplexed in every way, but not crushed” because we know the One who crushed the serpent’s head (Gen. 3: 15). We can cry and groan and sigh in our perplexity knowing that the Spirit helps in our weakness (Rom. 8: 26–27).

One day, when we are home with him we will see his perfect ways without perplexity. Until then, we are invited to keep bringing our confusion into the presence of Christ.