I Believe Everything Is Explainable

Why do we accept “It can’t be explained” as an answer, just because we don’t know the explanation ourselves—and what changes if we start from the premise that for God, nothing is unexplainable?

In conversations, I too sometimes find myself replying, “Yes, that’s unexplainable.” Though I have to admit, I tend to say it because I’m tired of explaining why I don't believe it's unexplainable.

And sometimes, I even have an explanation in mind. But until I’m sure it comes from God, I don’t say anything.

Because in reality, I believe it is very much explainable, and even quite explicit. I just don’t believe that we as humans have the ability to explain everything.

Even when we walk with Him, there are some things we cannot explain.

I was just saying to an acquaintance the other day: I’m the kind of person who needs an explanation for everything—but the explanation in God’s Word, that some things are not ours to explain, but His, is enough for me.

The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 29:29)

Because to be able to explain everything, we would need the ability to adopt God’s complete perspective.

And only God Himself can do that.

And I also believe that this leads us to explain many things incorrectly—precisely because we are so eager to have a clear cause for everything.

“That happened because he or she did something wrong.”

This simple cause-and-effect thinking has always felt somehow incomplete to me. Something is missing.

And then I realized: Jesus Himself contradicts exactly this kind of hasty explanation.

In John 9, Jesus and His disciples encounter a man who is blind from birth. And the disciples immediately ask Him about the cause: Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?

So they are looking for the very thing we humans so often search for, even to this day:

What did someone do wrong for this to happen?

And Jesus answers:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” (John 9:3)

Of course, this doesn’t mean our decisions have no consequences. The Bible certainly speaks of reaping what we sow. But Jesus demonstrates something here that I find incredibly important:

We must not take every instance of suffering, trace it back to a mistake, and then claim to have found God’s explanation for it.

In Luke 13, Jesus makes a similar point. When people talk to him about the Galileans who were killed by Pilate, Jesus asks if they think these people were greater sinners because this had happened to them. His answer: No.

He says the same thing about the eighteen people who died when the tower of Siloam collapsed.

And so perhaps one of our biggest problems isn't that we can't explain things.

Perhaps it's that we explain them anyway—and then mistake our human explanation for God's explanation.

Perhaps we see A and then B, and so we think A must be God's explanation for B.

But we see a tiny fragment.

God sees the whole.

That is why I also no longer believe that things fundamentally happen because someone did something ‘wrong’. What kind of God would that be?

Yes, in spiritualities related to karma, this is a common belief. But it’s only easy to understand as long as you're trying to do everything right and get ‘good karma’ in return.

But when something suddenly happens that no one deserves, the karma explanation becomes difficult. Especially since, for me, it also wouldn't be fair to have to pay for something in this life that supposedly comes from another life—how can you be held responsible for that today?

If you feel you are carrying something with you from a past life, I recommend turning to Jesus with it and praying for healing from whatever truly lies behind that feeling. Because God knows your whole story.

And God is fair.

The world is not. God is.

We all do things wrong, and God's grace and love are far too great for every instance of suffering to be understood simply as direct punishment for our mistakes.

I do believe that our actions can have consequences and that God intervenes, corrects, and judges. But I do not believe that we can therefore, in response to a specific event, simply claim:

“This happened to you because you did that.”

Because that is precisely when we would be acting, once again, as if we had God's complete perspective.

And we do not.

Even when we do not understand why something is happening, we can turn to him. And he welcomes us with open, loving arms.

When we start from the assumption that everything has an explanation, we also start to live as if nothing is unimportant.

And it isn't.

Everything is important.

Not in the sense that we must compulsively control it, but simply in the sense that we know:

Our life is important.

Every moment is important.

Regardless of whether it is productive, sad, happy, empty, not so productive, full of motivation, or at times the very opposite.

There is an explanation for why we are doing well. And there is one for why we are not doing so well.

Some things we can figure out. Some things God has revealed to us. And some things only God knows.

So perhaps we don't need to be able to explain everything in order to believe that everything is explainable.

Perhaps we just need to understand that “I don't know” does not mean the same thing as “There is no explanation.”

For the limit of our understanding is not the limit of what is explainable.

Some things we know.

Some things we can figure out.

Some things God has revealed. Some things are yet to come.

And some things… yes, some things remain hidden.

But “hidden” does not mean “inexplicable.”

And one thing is certain: I can trust that God will guide me even through those things whose purpose I cannot yet understand.

His love never lets us go—even when we feel it less at some times and more at others.