“Do Butterflies Make Butter?”
“Do butterflies make butter?”
My wife homeschools my 6-year-old second cousin, Kash. This is one of the questions he hit her with before 8 am one morning.
My wife giggled and replied “No, but that’s a really good question. Actually, butter comes from cows.”
It didn’t take long for Kash to give his assessment of this newfound information, “That don’t make no sense.”
As I thought about it, I realized he was right. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I thought about the innocence and wonder in a child’s mind, and how as he grew, Kash would be confronted with a lot of things that do not make sense. Not only do butterflies not make butter, but chickens don’t really have fingers nor do buffalo have wings. What is really going on?
On a more serious note, even as adults, we encounter circumstances and situations that just don’t make sense within our understanding of life and what is fair. I’ve always been pretty good at math. I like math because one plus one equals two, every time and all of the time. That makes perfect sense. Even when we have an unknown in a math problem and we have to solve for a variable like “x” or “y” there is a formula for doing so, problem solved.
But when we try to process problems like “Why do bad things happen to good people?” or “Why do children and babies sometimes have to suffer?” we realize that life is far more complex than a math problem. Some things just don’t add up. There is no magic formula to solve for those variables.
We find some of the Bible authors struggling with these same kinds of issues. The writer of Ecclesiastes (probably Solomon) perceived that the same things that happened to fools also happened to wise men. This, he said, was vanity.
Job’s three friends thought that if a man was afflicted like Job was, then surely, he must deserve it. Job didn’t understand his sufferings either and questioned God on why he was even allowed to be born. Job demanded answers from God.
So surely in the wisdom of the Bible, these questions are perfectly answered and we are given the magic formula to life, right?
Well, not quiet.
These issues are resolved but probably not as cleanly as we would prefer. It’s certainly not as simple as one plus one equals two. But we must remember that the Bible is not intended to answer every question we could ever have, but rather to teach us how to follow and trust God.
God never gave Job an explanation for the things he had to endure. Instead, God called attention to His own power and wisdom by recalling details of creation. What is the point here? God has wisdom that we know not of. God sees the big picture. Just trust Him.
In Ecclesiastes, the writer concludes that everything under the sun is vanity and vexation of the spirit, but the duty of man is still to fear God and keep His commandments.
A person can drive themselves mad trying to make sense of things that, in our minds at least, will never make sense. We do not have the capacity to understand such matters. The best approach is to find comfort in what we do understand: God is good. Every time, and all of the time. Just like one plus one.
God bless!
I look forward to hearing your comments, questions, and corrections below.
