The WHY’s of a Christian

Though we are children of God, walking together with God, leading successful Christian lives, there are many times when we are struck with ‘WHY’ questions. Every one of us can easily make a long list of ‘WHY’s, such as ‘Why the sudden loss or death?, why the delay?, why the accident?, why the lack?, why no answer?, why the trouble?, why the failure?, why no child?, why a broken relationship?, why me?’, etc. There are many characters in the Bible who had these ‘WHY’ questions, but none seems to have received an answer. Paul writes in Romans 9:20, “…A clay pot does not ask the man who made it, “Why did you make me like this?” But thank God, our Maker is gracious enough not to rebuke or punish us for asking ‘WHY?’, but nevertheless He doesn’t answer us, for He doesn’t have to.

Even I was prompted to prepare this sermon because of the death of a new believer, who came whole heartedly to our church with his family, set things right with God and just began running his course with the Almighty, suddenly collapsed due to kidney failure, and our whole church was filled with ‘WHY’s. Though I was strong in the Lord and His will, I too had a ‘WHY’, because he was too young, hardly 38, and he and his wife were too loving and caring for each other, with 3 small kids.

C.S. Lewis, shortly after losing his wife to cancer said,

When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.

Let us now meditate on a few of the ‘WHY’s from the Bible and see what we can learn out of them.

Moses

In Exodus chapter 3, we see God calling Moses for His cause, even after Moses’ repeated rejections. God promises to bring the Israelites out of their enslavement and to take them into the land of milk and honey. God calls Moses with signs. In chapter 5 we find Moses going to Pharaoh asking him to send the people to worship God, and Pharaoh rebukes Moses asking him to mind his own business. Pharaoh then orders the task masters to harden the tasks of the enslaved Israelites. These Israelites for whose rescue Moses was sent now agitated against Moses. Thus Moses was confronted by Pharaoh; his people were put into more trouble and last but importantly procured rudeness from those whom he expected to be thankful. Now Moses goes to God with two ‘WHY’s, which we read in Exodus 5:22, “Then Moses went back to the LORD and protested, “Why have you brought all this trouble on your own people, Lord? Why did you send me?”

But did Moses get an answer for his ‘Why’? No, God did not answer his question but instead prompted him towards the furtherance of His cause.

A missionary who went to China kept on evangelizing but found no fruit. Feeling depressed, he went to sleep and had a dream in which he was trying to break down a rocky boulder, giving it blow after blow and nothing seemed to happen. He heard a voice saying, “Never mind, go on, I’ll pay whether you break it or not.”

Gideon

In Judges chapter 6, we find the angel of God calling Gideon for God’s cause. Gideon questions him in verse 13, “Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened? And where are all his wonders that our fathers told us about? They said, ‘Hasn’t the LORD brought us out of Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to Midian.” Though Gideon met the angel of the Lord in person and heard his voice, he couldn’t believe because all he saw around him were adversities and oppressions. He could never feel even a glimpse of the presence of God with them. There was no miracle, not even a small sign for deliverance. Furthermore, Gideon considered his family to be the least among all tribes and he personally saw himself as obscure.

But God saw in Gideon a strength within him that was unknown to him, unseen, static and unapplied. God promised Gideon His presence, which is often unseen, unfelt and hidden. God’s promise of His presence does not add in itself a trouble-free life. Jesus says that we have troubles in this world. But He who overcame them is with us through all our hassles. Here too Gideon’s ‘WHY’ was not answered but instead he was assigned with God’s mission.

Job

Job in all his struggles questions God in 7:20 saying, “…Why have You made me Your target, so that I am a burden to You?” In 3:11 Job questions himself, “Why wasn’t I born dead? Why didn’t I die as I came from the womb?” In Job 1:11 and 2:5, we see that satan’s sole aim in bringing all the afflictions in the life of Job was to make Job to curse God. But thank God that Job questioned God and cursed himself, his very own existence but did not fall into satan’s trap of cursing God. Satan used his wife to achieve his target in 2:9, “His wife said to him, “Are you still trying to maintain your integrity? Curse God and die.” We often see our closest relatives or friends trying to persuade us away from God. Beware! We also find that it is satan who makes man’s life itself a burden for him. Job too never obtained any response for his ‘WHY’.

Jesus

Even Jesus in His days on earth had a ‘WHY’ question. In Matthew 27:46 we read, “At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” In Hebrews 5:7 we see Jesus praying aloud with tears to deliver Him from death and it reads that His prayer was heard. But did not Jesus die? Of course He died but overcame death by His resurrection. So, God our Father has His own way of answering our prayers. Most often His answers are not in the mode that we expect them to be. In Hebrews 2:14, 15 we read that through His death Jesus destroyed devil who held the power of death in order to free humankind from the fear of death. Every man born on earth is subjected to death. Noah and his family escaped death during the flood. But they all had to face death. What the Bible guarantees us is that, we who have Christ as our Savior need not fear death.

Jesus endured all physical sufferings, even endured desertion by His disciples, Peter and Judas. But He couldn’t stand His Father’s desertion though it was very temporal. Withdrawal of God’s presence from man is the replica of hell. Any living being on earth is cared by God whether it seeks or acknowledges Him. But if it is forsaken by God, it can never endure it even for a second.

Amidst all their ‘WHY’s, Jesus, Moses, Gideon and Job turned back to God with all their questions. But devil’s aim is to deviate us away from God, obstructing our prayer and meditation, and our going into His presence. Jesus’ dependency on His Father grew even more when He felt deserted and hence He cried out calling Him twice, “My God, My God.” He confided and leaned on His Father further until He entrusted His Spirit into His hands.

In spite of their ‘WHY’s, they did not run away from what God had called them to do. They ran and accomplished what God had meant them to do. Jesus succeeded in doing every single assignment that the Father had for Him to do and He finally said, “It is finished.

So, our ‘WHY’s are not wrong, but let us not just stop on our ‘WHY’s. We will never get a direct answer for them and our progress will be stunted. Let’s just trust in His call and purpose and keep going. Only God knows how to bring His promises to fulfillment. He has His own methods which we will never understand. Moses had the Red Sea in front and the armies of the Pharaoh in the rear. But God used His method to make them cross. Gideon had the Midianites, the Amalekites and the Eastern people for war against them. They were like locusts in number but Gideon’s men were just 300. God used His own technique to win over them. Job had to lose every single bit of all that he had, including his own health until he became a world known person with three ‘Miss World’s in his house and double blessings for all his losses. Jesus had to be in the grave for 3 days before He got resurrected and got His throne at the right hand of the Father. All that we know is that we are saved, called and promised. Let’s keep going on and on. He will surely bring to pass what He has in store for us. “…yea, I have spoken it, I will also bring it to pass; I have purposed it, I will also do it”, says the Lord in Isaiah 46:11. May God help us to keep going.