BrianandLibby.com

Note: This weekend, Brian and I got some truly horrible news. A good friend of Brian’s was, with his wife, expecting the birth of their first child anyday now, and instead they got the worst possible news - the baby didn’t make it. They still had to deliver their child, and have a funeral soon after. News like this stops you in your tracks and makes your conversations with God very honest and, well a little bit perplexing. It makes you ask the really hard questions. I wrote the following blog months ago for another purpose and never needed to post it. It somehow seemed appropriate today. I hope that this in no way undermines the pain of this and other similar situations, but having asked “Why” a lot in my past, it’s the only answer I’ve come up with so far.

Several times a week, I give my sister a call and she puts me on the phone with one of (or both of) my twin five-year old nieces. Lately, I’ve noticed a general trend in the conversation…every other word they say is “WHY?” This game has gotten old to me pretty quickly, since I don’t have kids (yet), and I think that also means I have less patience than those who do! I just got frustrated with them asking the same question over and over…it seemed so childish. Besides, they’re five; no answer I offered could possibly make sense to them. It was beyond what they could understand, but they still kept asking: “Why?”

I wonder if that’s what God thinks of us when we ask Him to explain Himself to us. When we question the God who created the universe and holds all of it together effortlessly while simultaneously attending to each of our individual needs and growing us up to be more like Him. When I think about it that way, it seems downright childish to ask Him why He does what He does. But He knows the cries of my heart, and he knows that sometimes I can’t understand how He would allow certain things to (or not to) happen…and sometimes I just want to know WHY.

A few weeks ago, I got an e-mail from a good friend whose father is battling cancer. It brought me back to four years ago, when my dad was diagnosed with a fast-growing cancer, and given three months to live. When I got that news, I was completely speechless with the exception of one word… WHY? “God my dad is the cream of the crop! He loves you and he serves you. He’s a great dad and husband. He has daughters getting married and grandkids being born in the next year. Why him? Why now?”

In my earthly view, I like answers. I like to see the puzzle pieces fit together, I like order and logic. When I have questions, I look for answers - it’s natural to me. It’s how the world around me works, and I’ve been trained to follow suit. It’s hard for me to comprehend that God isn’t confined to function within those boundaries. He isn’t confined by time or space. He is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. It hurts my brain just to try to take that in.
There are a lot of questions I’ll never have an answer to. And every day I hear something else that brings on even more. How do I keep myself from asking them? I have to, eventually, let go of my longing for answers and just go with what I know. That God loves me with an everlasting love. That He is doing a work in me that I can’t even begin to comprehend. That He is in control of every detail in my life. That He wants to make me more like Himself every day. That His plans are to prosper me and give me a future. That all things really do work together for good. That I will spend eternity with Him.

Somehow when I focus on what God has told me, questions about the things He hasn’t told me eventually start to fade away. And I remember that God is good, all the time. And I’m able to trust Him without knowing WHY.

“God never promised us a risk-free existence. Bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. And that causes tremendous angst…unless we look at life through the eyes of eternity.” –Mark Batterson, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day

Please say a prayer for this family as they grieve, and ask the hard questions, and seek God in the midst of the most horrible of circumstances.