Revelation vs Reason

Revelation: The divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world.

Reason: Think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic.

Is revelation and reason at odds? is it one or the other?

I don't believe so. I believe that they are both tools in our tool chest. So often we like to lift a tool up and worship it instead of using it as a tool as designed.

Most Christians will agree that we shouldn't worship reason because it is very human.  I think we forget that reason is as much a gift from God as revelation.

The problem of worshiping reason is we forget how limited we humans are and how limited reason is. Personally I think that we are ending the age of reason. Why? Scientifically we are taught the uncertainty principle, observer effect ... etc. We are also learning how much the human is controlled by emotions even though we "think" they are from reason. Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

I believe as Christians we have to watch we don't worship a revelation. There are tons of stories of people following a revelation that turns out to be false (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events). Can we worship the revelation but forget the reveler himself? I think worshiping a revelation (and not the reveler God himself) can be just as bad as worshiping reason.

Personally I think they need to work together just as two tools can work together. I think the below passage is a good example.

1 Samuel 17 (NIV)
^"34 But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, ³⁵ I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. ³⁶ Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.”
Saul said to David, “Go, and the Lord be with you.”"

You see how David is using reason and revelation. Because God rescued me from ... will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine"

Eternal Vet

C.S. Lewis A Grief Observed

"Two Widely different convictions press more and more on my mind. One is that the Eternal Vet is even more inexorable and the possible operations even more painful than our severest imaginings can forbode. But the other, that 'all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'"

^{Ecclesiastes 2:17} "So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. ¹⁸ I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me."

^{Daniel 12:10} Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.

Is it that for some people the suffering/work/toil is refinement but for some people it is only suffering.

If you believe in a loving God that cares about us and loves us more than we can imagine.

If you believe he is outside time and sees the beginning and the end at the same instant

If you believe he is creator of all and has power over all

If our eternal soul is worth more than anything

If we believe that trials and challenges bring about refinement in us and make us better or make our eternal soul better 

Would then God (the Eternal Vet) spare us some trouble at the expense of our eternal soul?

No I believe he is the diligent Vet/Saviour/God who will focus at all cost till the wrong is righted. No mater what his patient does or say.