This painful season of life broke open my understanding of God.

As I wrestle with pain, I’m tempted to wall off my question marks and unanswered prayers, embracing a more generic faith in a less personal God.

That would feel more comforting right now, so I could persist with some tidy beliefs despite my angst.

But I can’t seem to find any evidence of a generic God in Scripture.

I instead find account after account of a personal God who intensely pursues His people, so He can walk closely with them.

I instead read about this living God who wants to do life with His children.

I instead see this God who repeatedly makes Himself known in complicated and weird and inconvenient ways.

I watch this God, who made a promise in Genesis, fulfill that promise generations times generations later through Christ Jesus in Matthew.

I scratch my head as I make my way from Genesis to Psalms to Romans, trying to cleanly tie up what I’ve read.

God is complex.

Ha. Of course, He’s complex.

But saying He’s complex and living His complexities are two vastly different experiences.

I am presently living God’s complexities.

I’m living them as I wrestle with soul-crushing pain that feels so contrary to the goodness of God.

I’m living His complexities as I beg Him to heal my loved one, witness regression, and still know He’s healer.

I’m living His complexities as I plead with Him to take away the pain, watch the pain grow, and still know He cares.

I’m living His complexities as I cry out in anguish for a Word and at times, experience silence, and still know He’s here.

I am walking closely with a complex God.

I am walking closely with a complex and good God in a broken world.

He is sovereign,
and
He is moved by our prayers.

[Psalm 71:16; Matthew 21:22; Psalm 66:19]

He is lofty,
and
He is concerned with the hairs on our head.

[Psalm 139:1-12; Psalm 47:2; Matthew 10:30]

He is just,
and
He is gracious.

[Psalm 71:16; Ephesians 2:8]

His ways are higher than ours, 
and
His Spirit reveals His ways to us.

[Isaiah 55:8; 1 Corinthians 2:16; Romans 8:26-27]

He is too holy to look on, 
and
He dwells within us.

[Exodus 33:18-23; Matthew 17:1-8; Romans 8:11; 2 Corinthians 1:22]

He is our protector,
and
He is our comforter.

[Isaiah 40:11; Psalm 34:19-20; 2 Corinthians 1:3-4]

He is ineffable,
and
He is personally known to us.

[Psalm 92:5; Psalm 139:6; Isaiah 55:8; Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23; 2 Corinthians 4:6, 7]

This is the complex God who calls us.

A complex God can handle my complicated questions.

But a complex God also demands my child-like yes.

A mere “yes” indicating my willing heart amid my sea of question marks.

As illogical as it sounds, as illogical as it feels—-

The longer I live,
the less answers I have,
the more I choose God,
the more I love Him.