Why?

“I seek the lessons God wants to teach me,

and that means that I ask why.”

 – Elisabeth Elliot

 

Why do the good suffer? Why do we have to watch loved ones experience pain and disease? Why does God ask us to give of ourselves, over and over, and then see nothing come of it? Why do plans change? Why do things break down just when we desperately need them? Why do children often take the brunt of their parents’ decisions? Why do relationships have to be so complicated? Why are there problems that seem to have layer after layer and no clear solution? Why does time sometimes pass too quickly and at other times pass agonizingly slow? Why does God ask us to wait? Why does God close some doors and open others?

 

I used to think that it was wrong to ask God why. I would picture a person with his fist raised at God, crying out in anger. The audacity of a finite creature daring to question the infinite Creator God shocked me. Somehow, it was the only way I thought one could ask God why.

 

I was wrong.

 

Elisabeth Elliot writes the following: “There would be no sense in asking why if one did not believe in anything. The word itself presupposes purpose. Purpose presupposes a purposeful intelligence. Somebody has to have been responsible. It is because we believe in God that we address questions to Him. We believe that He is just and that He is love, but that belief is put to severe strain as we wrestle with our pains and perplexities, with our very position in His ordered universe.”

 

Without any intention on my part (but plenty of intention on my Heavenly Father’s), my devotions have dovetailed on a single topic: asking God why. It started with the book of Job and some major life changes.

 

My knowledge of Job was confined to the few classic verses (Job 1:21, Job 19:25-26, Job 23:10) I have heard mentioned in sermons over the years. Maybe it was that I thought I knew enough about suffering, or have at least seen enough suffering in my job, to place it low on my reading list. Or maybe the thought of Job being stripped of everything was just, well, too uncomfortable to read about.

 

So, I took a deep breath and started reading. What I found completely changed my perspective, both on Job and on asking God why.

 

J. Vernon McGee writes that God’s purpose was twofold: to reveal Himself to Job and to reveal Job to himself. In other words, God desired to correct Job’s misconceptions of God and himself. “God selected the best man who ever lived in the time of the Old Testament, possibly the best man who ever lived with the exception of Jesus Christ. God chose this man and showed that he needed to repent. When we get to the end of this book, we find the words of Job himself. ‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes’ (Job 42:5-6). This ought to teach every believer today – that no matter how good we think we are, we need to see ourselves as God sees us. All our righteousness is as filthy rags.”

 

As I get further and further, I see Job’s progression. After uttering his great statement in Job 1:21, he goes in to the depths of despair, wishing only for death (Job 3, 7). When his wish goes unmet, he wants to go into God’s presence and defend himself (Job 9). As he responds to the accusations and advice of his “friends,” we begin to see glimmers of light.  He realizes that he is unable to defend himself (Job 9:32). He recognizes that God is the sustainer of man (Job 12: 10). He acknowledges God as the source of wisdom, counsel, and strength (Job 12:13). He sees that God will be his salvation (Job 13:16) and that God is asking him to trust Him (Job 13:15).

 

Scattered throughout Job’s progression, I see whys, especially in chapter 3. I see Job asking God why. Why the test? Why the sufferings? Why are You doing this to me? He does not ask in anger with a raised fist, but out of a wondering, hurting heart. I see whys sprinkled throughout the Psalms as well (Psa. 10:1, Psa. 22:1, Psa. 42:9, Psa. 43:2, Psa. 88:14).

 

Like Job, I ask why. Like Job, God asks me to trust Him.

 

I can bring my questions to Him, but I know I have no right to the answer. He is God, I am not. His ways are not my ways. His purposes are higher than I could ever imagine.

 

In On Asking God Why (the second book the Lord brought to my attention) Elisabeth Elliot writes, “God does many things that we do not understand. Of course He does – He is God, perfect in wisdom, love, and power. We are only children, very far from perfect anything. A true faith must rest solidly on His character and His Word, not on our particular conceptions of what He ought to do.”

 

The proper posture is one of surrender, trust, and hope. Hope. That’s another concept the Lord has been teaching me. Hope in God is an amazing concept, one that Job recognizes in his great statement in Job 19:25. His hope is that God will redeem him, He will return to the earth one day, and He will restore. When I rest in that, He gives the peace that passes understanding.

 

The why remains, but so does He. We had a speaker from Canada in church a few weeks back. He said that God does not rush us through the crisis to the rest and safety on the other side until we have learned of Him. Each situation, problem, moment brings us an opportunity to know Him more. And that is really what it is all about. That is what the lesson was for Job. The lesson is the same for me today.

 

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding.

Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?”

 – Job 38:4, 5, 16

 

“No, Lord, but You have. Nothing in those dark caverns is mysterious to You.

Nor is anything in my life. I trust You with the unfathomables.

But You know I’ll be back – with the usual question.”

 – Elisabeth Elliot