How should I respond to life’s ambiguities?

Judges 14:4His [Samson’s] father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.

Habakkuk 1:12-13O Lord my God, my Holy One, you who are eternal—surely you do not plan to wipe us out? O Lord, our Rock, you have sent these Babylonians to correct us, to punish us for our many sins. But you are pure and cannot stand the sight of evil. Will you wink at their treachery? Should you be silent while the wicked swallow up people more righteous than they? Habakkuk had questions and doubts about how God acted, but not about who God is—faithful, loving, and just. We can know God is loving and just and still not understand why he allows some things to happen. But we can choose to trust him, regardless of what we understand.

Sometimes we need to leave events in God’s hands, especially when we don’t know why they are happening.

1 Corinthians 13:12Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

2 Corinthians 4:8, 13, 15, 18We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. . . . But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” . . . All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory. . . . So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

The best way to view earth’s ambiguities is from a different perspective—through the eyes of heaven.