It’s part of human nature to want to figure things out, and perhaps especially true when something bad happens. If we can know why something happens then maybe we can prevent future harm. While there’s some truth here, sin often defies logic. The dark motivations of our hearts might rarely pass the strict scrutiny of logical rationale. And the better approach is simply to focus on doing right today rather than trying to make sense of the senselessness of our past sins.
Of course, part of maturity includes a bit of self-reflection. Knowing our deepest desires helps us from falling into the trap of cheap imitations, which is often the case with sin – good desires becoming distorted. But understanding general motivations for sin is not the same as being able to rationally explain it. And we leave each other frustrated when we expect such sound logical rationale for our sins. We cannot make sense out of senselessness.
This is like trying to explain why a dog eats its own vomit, or why a pig returns to the mud. This is just what they do and it will rarely make complete sense to outsiders. And our sinful behaviors often function in the same way. It starches an itch in the moment, but even the most modest rational review would suggest these are not wise decisions. And perhaps, like Paul, we find ourselves in moments in which we struggle to understand ourselves – wanting to do what’s right, but we don’t, and doing what we hate instead.
Whatever it looks like, finding our way forward is not by demanding a perfect understanding of our sin. Such demand is fueled by our pride and need for control. To be sure, this is not an excuse to continue operating blindly. But it is to shift our focus toward who we are becoming today rather than obsessing about who we were yesterday.
In the end, sometimes sin is senseless. This is not to minimize its impact or to deny our need to learn from the past. But it’s to free us to focus on the heart of the issue rather than trying to force logic where there is none.
Photo by Nel Ranoko on Unsplash
