What do we do when life just doesn’t make sense? Illness strikes. A job is lost. Friendships fade. Uncertainty looms. Whether the gray-haired saint facing cancer or the college student burdened by the pressures of the future, crisis and suffering have a way of shaking even the most confident Christian.

We may know that God is in control of all things at all times in all places, yet we often feel frustrated because we don’t understand what he is up to. So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense?

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes asked a similar question. Often, when someone mentions Ecclesiastes, we can think, “Whoa — he was a downer.” In reality, though, Ecclesiastes does not push the depressed over the edge, but rather gives the frustrated a foothold of joy in our puzzling world. The Preacher declares a simple message of hope for the struggling: enjoy life by fearing God even when you cannot understand his works and ways.

God Weaves All Things Together

When we do not understand why life is the way it is, the Preacher would have us be certain that God orchestrates all its changing seasons.

Everything has its time: “A time to be born, and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:2). The Preacher poetically introduces his subject by using birth and death to encapsulate all things in life. All things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — occur according to an appointed time. In his words, “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). Who appoints this timing? The Preacher does not leave us wondering for long: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

Just as beauty befits a lover (Song of Solomon 1:8, 15; 2:10), so God works all things together in a fitting, beautiful way according to his will. He is the artist; all of life is his mosaic. He is the great weaver who threads all things together to form an exquisite tapestry. Perhaps we know what passage Paul meditated on as he wrote, “We know that for those who love God all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28).

Mystery from Beginning to End

Yet even with confidence in the sovereign rule of God over all things at all times in all places, the Preacher recognizes his own inability to understand. He writes, “Also, [God] has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

In context, “eternity” parallels “what God has done from the beginning to the end.” Humanity has a God-given desire to comprehend “what God has done from the beginning to the end,” but God placed this desire in our hearts in such a way that we “cannot find out” what he has done. As Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) writes, “For all eternity he put in men’s hearts the fact that they might never discover what God has done from the beginning right to the end” (Homilies on Ecclesiastes, 79).

Naturally, as we arrive at the intersection of our finiteness and God’s infinity, we leave frustrated. The Preacher writes, “What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with” (Ecclesiastes 3:9–10). His question implies a negative answer: none. The worker has no gain from his toil.

What toil? In general, the activities noted in Ecclesiastes 3:2–8 constitute our toil through life, but Ecclesiastes 8:17 also reveals a specific piece of our struggle: “Then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out.” No matter how hard we try, we cannot make sense of God’s works and ways.

“God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us.”

At the very least, we should consider reframing the original question. Instead of asking, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense?” we might ask, “What do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?” God works all things together according to his wisdom, but we do not have the capacity to understand all he does. God’s works and ways make sense — beautiful, wise, and fitting sense — just not always to us. Isaiah would not be surprised by this conclusion: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8).

Fear Before Him

So what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us?

The Preacher does not leave us alone to suffer in nihilistic resignation: “I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God is not merely playing with his creation because he wants to have some fun at our expense. He has not created a world with no meaning, leaving humans to wander through life without hope of understanding. Instead, God designed us to desire infinite knowledge so that we would fear him.

To fear God means to remember who God is and to remember who we are in relationship (and outside of relationship) with him. We remind ourselves of God’s sovereign control of all things in life, humbly accepting our own inability to always understand his ways. At the same time, we can do so with joy because we know that God works all things together beautifully for our good.

Like Job in the face of great calamity, we ask, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10). We look uncertainty and tragedy in the eye, as painful as it may be, and by his grace declare, “Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Embrace the Life You Can See

We do not stop at fear, though. Rightly fearing God starts the process, but God wants more. The Preacher writes, “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil — this is God’s gift to man” (Ecclesiastes 3:12–13). Don’t read the Preacher’s words as some sort of carpe diem motto that urges us to make the most of life while we can. Even when we cannot understand God’s work or ways, he wants us to enjoy life — every season of it — within the context of a holy fear.

In his book Things of Earth, Joe Rigney urges Christians to “embrace your creatureliness. Don’t seek to be God. Instead, embrace the glorious limitations and boundaries that God has placed on you as a character in his story” (234). Rigney’s exhortation hits at the core of Ecclesiastes 3: rightly fearing God and enjoying his world. To fear God rightly is to remember our humanity. When we can’t see around the dark corner of life yet to come, no matter how much we want to, we remember our humanity. We remember that God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.

“God is God, and we are not. He controls all things at all times at all places, and he is good.”

So, we ask God for the grace to embrace the life we can see — the life he has given to us — and to enjoy it fully. Breathe deeply the cool air of a fall morning as you walk the dog. Slowly sip hot chocolate with your children. Work hard at the temp job as you await a permanent position. Let your hand linger with your ailing loved one. Even when we do not understand God’s works and ways, we can delight in his good gifts to us. We can find a unique pleasure in our toil as we throw ourselves upon our rock, Jesus Christ, through the storms of life.

Jason DeRouchie ably summarizes the tension between finitude, infinity, frustration, and joy: “This is the goal of Ecclesiastes: that believers feeling the weight of the curse and the burden of life’s enigmas would turn their eyes toward God, resting in his purposes and delighting whenever possible in his beautiful, disfigured world” (“Shepherding Wind and One Wise Shepherd,” 15).

Do Good Like God

After inviting us to enjoy the life God has given, the Preacher adds one more dimension to our well-being: “There is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live” (Ecclesiastes 3:12). When we embrace our finiteness and enjoy God and his gifts to us, we ultimately live like God by doing good to others. We soak up the joy of the life he has given to us, and then we channel that joy to others.

So, what do we do when life doesn’t make sense to us? We face all things — the good, the bad, and the somewhere in between — with confidence because we know our God is weaving all things together for good, even when we cannot see past our current circumstances. We walk hand in hand with our Savior on the path of life, enjoying all his gifts, big and small. And then we do good to others by inviting them to do the same.

If you were to ask me what I take to be among Scripture’s most comforting passages, my answer may surprise you: Psalm 90 and Ecclesiastes.

Psalm 90 is Israel’s poignant lament that, even though they are God’s chosen people, they are also Adam’s children, subject as he was to God’s righteous anger at their sin. Moses’s poetry in Psalm 90 leads us, step by step, deep into the cellar of their life’s brevity, pain, and toil. The third verse begins that descent by echoing God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:19:

You return man to dust     and say, “Return, O children of Adam!” . . .You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,     like grass that is renewed in the morning:in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;     in the evening it fades and withers.For we are brought to an end by your anger;     by your wrath we are dismayed.You have set our iniquities before you,     our secret sins in the light of your presence.For all our days pass away under your wrath;     we bring our years to an end like a sigh. (Psalm 90:3, 5–9)

We aren’t exactly sure of the details — perhaps, as Allen Ross argues, Moses penned this psalm at the end of Israel’s forty years of wandering in the wilderness (A Commentary on the Psalms, 3:26–27). Whatever the specific backdrop, the Israelites had gone through a period of intense suffering and had thus learned the hard way that God’s anger against their sin meant that, even if they lived unusually long lives, their best years would be but toil and trouble that would soon be gone, and then they would fly away (verse 10).

Good But Unfathomable Providence

Ecclesiastes is best understood “as an arresting but thoroughly orthodox exposition of Genesis 1–3,” as David Clemens observes. In particular, it makes “the painful consequences of the fall . . . central,” clarifying how disconcerting life after the fall can be. The Preacher knows that God generally administers his providence through the world’s regular causal processes (Ecclesiastes 1:4–7, 9). Fools and sluggards generally get what they deserve because they refuse to conform to creation’s ordered patterns (Ecclesiastes 4:5; see also Proverbs 6:6–11; 20:4; 24:30–34). Wisdom is better than folly because the wise understand and honor those patterns and thus can see where they are going, while fools stumble around in the dark (Ecclesiastes 2:13–14).

But still, “time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). In other words, what God, in the course of his ordinary providence, ordains creation’s structures and processes to bring us, is not only outside our control but also beyond our finding out. Yet nothing can be added to what God does, nor anything taken away from it. “God has done it, so that people fear before him” (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

A healthy, holy fear of God’s providence thus keeps us humble and dependent as we acknowledge that he has so ordered life “under the sun” that, however hard we may strive to understand what was or is or will be, we won’t fathom much. “No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it” (Ecclesiastes 8:17 NIV).

More specifically, we can’t tell from what is happening whom God truly loves, since the same events happen to good and bad alike. In this fallen world, righteousness is not always rewarded, and wickedness doesn’t always receive the punishment it deserves: “There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the wicked, and there are wicked people to whom it happens according to the deeds of the righteous” (Ecclesiastes 8:14; 7:15). How God will apportion good and bad, joy and sorrow, ease and difficulty to each of us in our earthly lives exceeds our grasp (Job 9:1–12; Luke 13:1–5).

God Has Not Abandoned Us

The stark realism of Psalm 90 and Ecclesiastes may seem disheartening. Yet, the apostle Paul tells us that “everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4 NIV). So how do these passages encourage us and give us hope?

They remind us that, since the fall, suffering is an ordinary part of human life under sin’s regime. God’s judgments in Genesis 3:16–19 anticipate some of the sorts of suffering that are now endemic to human life. Genesis 4 then drives home just how excruciating human life can be: Adam and Eve’s first son, Cain, murders their second son, Abel, and then is condemned to be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

“Since the fall, suffering is an ordinary part of human life under sin’s regime.”

Yet we must not conclude that our lives will be nothing but unrelieved suffering. In addressing the pagan polytheists in Lystra, Paul reminds them that God had not left himself without a witness, “for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:17). Eve’s daughters will suffer physically and emotionally as they marry and have families (Genesis 3:16), but they may experience great joy in their marriages and families as well. Adam’s sons will always have to scratch out a living (Genesis 3:17–19), but the end of long days may still be satisfying if we have labored as we should.

Psalm 90 and Ecclesiastes caution us against expecting settled happiness now. Since the fall, even creation itself groans because of its subjection to the futility of sin (Romans 8:18–21). And so, if life gets bad for us, it isn’t a sign that Christianity is untrue or that God has abandoned us. In fact, when we have faced significant suffering and survived it, we often experience the opposite: we find we can rejoice in our suffering, knowing that it teaches us endurance, and that endurance makes us stronger and deeper in ways that prompt us to hope for our final and complete salvation as we sense God’s love for us through the presence of his Holy Spirit (Romans 5:3–5; James 1:2–3; 1 Peter 1:3–9).

Joy with the Morning

To be a Christian means to believe in our Lord’s bodily resurrection (Romans 10:9), and to believe in his resurrection entails believing in our own resurrections (1 Corinthians 15). Our hope for the ultimate redemption of our bodies is, as Paul puts it, the hope in which we were saved (Romans 8:24).

This hope, Paul tells us, keeps us from losing heart, for while “our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). No matter what is happening to us, we can recognize that it will ultimately count as little more than a “light momentary affliction” that is “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17–18; Romans 8:18).

“Our suffering can and should prompt us to look up and long for what God has prepared for us.”

Our suffering, in other words, can and should prompt us to look up and long for what God has prepared for us. And what is that? It is a life of no more sorrow, no more tears, when sin and death will be no more (Revelation 21:4). It is the life of complete joy in communion with God that our Lord has prepared for those who wait for him (Isaiah 64:4).

Psalm 90 and Ecclesiastes encourage me to look only to God and not to anything or anyone in this world for every good thing (Psalm 90:13–17). They also assure me that, for those of us who have become his children through faith in his Son’s work, God’s anger against our sin will last for only a moment, while his favor toward us will last forever. While our weeping may last through the night, unending joy will come to us in the morning (Psalm 30:5).

Four decades ago, when I got married, I asked to have the words “and to obey” removed from my wedding vows: “for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey . . .” As a female executive and partner in an advertising agency, my egalitarian instincts ran deep. I was a Christian, and I also wholeheartedly believed a woman could and should hold any position a man might if she were able. It hadn’t occurred to me that some callings might have been designed by God for men and others for women. It felt normal to be part of a church with women in pastoral and other leadership positions. Submitting as a woman seemed like an old-fashioned idea.

Today, however, I joyfully embrace the biblical vision of sexual complementarity. I am living proof that a wife can change from being offended at the very word submit to celebrating the beauty of God’s plan for men and women, husbands and wives. I want to offer my story as an encouragement to men whose wives have not yet seen the beauty and the kindness of the Lord in assigning them the calling to follow and support a godly man.

So, what happened? And how did my husband help me to change?

Revolution by Revelation

In embracing biblical femininity, I clearly did not take my cues from our society. The world we live in today has moved radically to deny the differences between men and women. It scoffs at the idea that God might have created men for greater authority and responsibility and accountability. Even some evangelicals deny male headship.

The mainline Protestant church I attended certainly did. We had women in leadership at every level. Yet by God’s grace, that’s where my change began.

The church appointed me as the lay leader of the congregation, the highest role a layperson could hold, and they chose me over — wait for it — my own husband. Our pastor had put my husband’s name before the committee, and when an objection was raised against him, they selected me.

This appointment cast a dark shadow over our marriage. Both my husband and I felt something was deeply wrong. Eventually, we left that egalitarian church (and all the controversy that boiled in that denomination) and found a wonderful church that preached through the Bible line by line. My husband and I fell in love with Scripture, including God’s good design for men and women. And my understanding changed as I grew to see God’s good plan.

This new church was led by a team of good, kind, godly men. These pastors believed God. They believed he had designed men and women differently and had assigned men primary leadership responsibility. They knew their Bibles and demonstrated godly character. They led, taught, shepherded, and counseled courageously. There was a palpable sense of God’s power that seemed to flow through the obedience of these men. Under their care, I felt such a tremendous sense of relief. My husband did too.

Our souls flourished. Our church life flourished. Our marriage flourished. And 26 years later, God’s design continues to feel more and more right.

The Man of My Change

In telling my story of change, my particular burden is to encourage godly men whose wives are still captured by the siren song of feminism. The call for women to claim their “rights” and not be denied the opportunity to use their gifts any way they desire is loud and alluring. The propaganda hides the pride at the root of this demand. Like Eve, some women believe the lie that God (through men) has denied her something she is entitled to. Did God really say . . . ? In misunderstanding, women have missed the beautiful, privileged calling God has assigned to us.

God was kind to take my husband and me along the road to understanding and embracing his plan together, but I know that is not true for everyone. To faithful husbands with wives who won’t follow, I say there is hope. Do not lose heart. I was once a woman like your wife, and God used my husband to help change me. So, allow me to share five things I saw God doing in my husband that helped me to embrace my biblical calling.

1. He walked more closely with Jesus.

Even more than your calling as husband, you are first a man of God. God calls you to be transformed day by day as you walk with Christ (1 John 2:6; Ephesians 5:1–2). When this is your aim, Christ will help you lead with his strength. The teaching we were receiving in our new church inspired my husband to spend more time in the word, to be more involved in friendships with other godly men, and, gradually, to be more convicted by and repentant of his own sin. When we were praying together, he would often confess in ways that melted my heart. I could see God’s hand working in him, and it touched me deeply.

What does Paul pray unceasingly for the Colossian church? That they “may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Colossians 1:9–10). This is what God wants for all Christians: walk well, bear fruit, know God. If you are faithful in this, you will bless your marriage and be an example for your wife.

2. He became a more godly man.

You may be tempted to focus on changing your wife, but only God can change her heart. God can use you, however. A good place to begin is by being the kind of man your wife will respect.

“Like Eve, some women believe the lie that God (through men) has denied her something she is entitled to.”

If you “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love” (Ephesians 4:1–2); if you are “tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32); if your love is patient and kind, if it doesn’t boast, if it isn’t arrogant or rude, if you don’t insist on your own way, and if you are not irritable or resentful (1 Corinthians 13:4–5); if you keep your word, letting your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no (James 5:12); if you strive to display these qualities and bear the fruit of the Spirit, you will create a climate in your home that God may use to soften the heart of your wife. I saw more of all of these qualities emerging in my husband as we grew in right understanding of God’s word. (It also doesn’t hurt that my husband has a great sense of humor and can apply it to his own faults and in his correction of me.)

Of course, God calls your wife to embrace these qualities too, but don’t worry about her for now. Are you striving to be a godly man? If so, wait and see what God will do. My husband’s example still blesses me and stirs in me a desire to be a better woman.

3. He heartily embraced God’s call to husbands.

In God’s kindness, the first Sunday school class my husband and I attended in our new church was on Ephesians 5:22–33. That class deeply convicted my husband about his responsibility to strive to present me before Christ without spot or wrinkle.

What did Ephesians 5:26 tell him to do? Wash her in the word! He has been washing me in the word nearly every morning since. Are you washing your wife in the word? Are you reading Scripture together and talking about what you see? Are you eager to tell her something you read in the Bible that encouraged you and might encourage her? Are you bathing her with gospel truth when she is discouraged? Do you want to cherish and nourish her as much as you cherish and nourish yourself? Are you in a church that preaches God’s word faithfully, even the most challenging portions?

If your wife embraces egalitarianism, immersing yourself and her in God’s word may help her see God as loving and trustworthy and his plans as glorious — including his plans for husbands and wives.

4. He showed patience.

We all struggle with patience, that difficult fruit of the Spirit, but trusting God’s timing is so good. Does your desire for your wife accord with God’s plan? Then trust that he is working, even when you can’t see it happening. We were in that egalitarian church for eighteen years, and I served as lay leader for several years, and you know what? God was working throughout that whole time. I am still naturally strong-willed and sometimes struggle with speaking before carefully thinking and praying, and most of the time my husband remains patient. I am so grateful!

“With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone” (Proverbs 25:15). If patience can persuade a ruler, then it can certainly persuade a mistaken wife.

5. He prayed for me.

One of the ways God has transformed my heart is by revealing more and more of the incredible power of prayer. My husband prays with me and for me nearly every day in our devotional time. Nearly every day, he thanks God for the gift of being married to me! Do you pray fully confident that God hears and has the power to change your wife’s heart? Dear reader, pray scriptural truth boldly for yourself and your wife. Pray for God to help you be the man and husband he calls you to be. Pray for God to bless your wife and cause her faith to flourish.

More privately, pray for God to help your wife’s love for Christ and her respect for you to grow. Pray for God to soften your wife’s heart so she can see his beautiful plan for men and women. Pray for God to strengthen your faith and help you believe he can do all these things and more. Because he can.

God’s plans for men and women are truly glorious. Husbands and wives will never be satisfied until we align our will with God’s and live the way he intended. Husbands, lead your wives in a way that displays the glorious plan of God. This is his will for you and your marriage. Do your part with joy and faith, and leave the results to him. If your wife doesn’t change, remain godly and faithful anyway. No matter what your wife chooses to do, God’s will for you remains.

And do not give up. “Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him” (James 1:12).