QUESTIONING GOD
I enjoy most sorts of puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles, word puzzles, cube puzzles, rope puzzles, number puzzles—just about anything! Even the ones I’m horrible at, like rope puzzles, I usually still enjoy. If it’s no big deal whether you figure it out or not, then being baffled, befuddled and perplexed can be fun. When success doesn’t matter, you’re free to enjoy failure! You should see some of the awful, unsolvable knots I’ve happily tied rope puzzles into!
Life can be very puzzling, too. Sometimes we cannot figure out why our plans failed, or why someone doesn’t like us, or why we keep making that one mistake over and over again. In such times, it feels like the solid ground beneath us has started to shift—a literal “sinking feeling.” This sinking, bewildered feeling is nothing at all like my amused frustration when giving up on a rope puzzle. When it’s your life that is defying all solution, being utterly perplexed feels like a very final dead end.
The spiritual life is no different. Sometimes we can become very confused, with many questions and no answers—and the same sinking feeling. And it’s not just you and me. I’ll put forward Moses as an example of those of us who, throughout the ages, have at times been quite baffled by God:
“Lord, why have You brought harm to this people? Why did You ever send me? Ever since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has done harm to this people, and You have not rescued Your people at all.” -Moses
The cry of the perplexed is always, “Why?” Why—why is this happening? Why did I lose when winning seemed sure? Why don’t I feel like I’m supposed to feel? Why did I get rejected? Why can’t I figure out why?
Concerning Moses’s complaint, we know (now) that God was rescuing His people, just as He had said. The problem was that Moses had assumed and expected God’s deliverance to be of a certain sort, and at a certain time. This expectation led to a lot of needless confusion on Moses’s part.
Later, a successor to Moses arose: Joshua was a man who repeatedly demonstrated great faith and courage. But, it’s not too many chapters into the book of Joshua before we find this:
“Oh, Lord God! Why did You ever bring this people across the Jordan, only to hand us over to the Amorites, to eliminate us?” -Joshua
The point is this: our heroes are human. Moses and Joshua (and the rest!) were all subject to the exact same fundamental difficulties as us. Failing to understand what was happening, they (sometimes!) got confused and frustrated, and demanded “why” from God. Aren’t we just the same, each of us?
At this point, you might be expecting me to offer some solution. But, that’s the problem here—we’re talking about what to do when there isn’t a solution that anyone can see. So, then, does that mean I’m just here to harp on the problems, and offer no solutions? No—well, at least not exactly.
Think about the questions Moses and Joshua ask. Why, God, why this circumstance? Why this setback? Why this defeat?
Can I point out something sort of obvious? If Moses or Joshua had viewed their circumstances from God’s perspective, they wouldn’t have thought anything was wrong with their circumstances. There’d have been no need for asking why. God’s plan for Moses (to deliver His people from Egypt) was not threatened by Pharaoh. God’s plan for Joshua (to lead His people into the promised land) was not threatened by the Amorites. But, Moses and Joshua weren’t always able to have that perspective—their faith didn’t always stand tall.
Here are some of our other heroes: Peter denied Jesus, not once, but three times in one night. The prophet Elijah once ran away to wallow in self pity. The prophet Jonah runs away, gets forcibly corrected, hates his ministry, and ends up decidedly unhappy with God. And there’s Jacob, and there’s David, and there’s Samson, and… and…
I (personally) find all of this wonderfully encouraging—God works with real people! Joshua was the very best that his generation had to offer, and still his faith wavered. The Bible isn’t full of a bunch of pie-in-the-sky stories about perfect people with perfect faith—the Bible is way too true for that!
Are you in a place of confusion right now? Are you asking “why” a lot? If so, I’d like to suggest you consider another one of our heroes: Job. I’m pretty sure Job asks God “why” more than anyone else in the Bible. Job’s story is a little complicated, but it’s enough to say that some really, really horrible things happened to Job, seemingly for no reason. The ensuing struggle for understanding is the major theme of the book of Job. Here are some of the suffering Job’s questions:
“Why did I not die at birth, come out of the womb and pass away?” -Job
“Why have You made me Your target?” -Job
“Why do You hide Your face and consider me Your enemy?” -Job
“Why should I not be impatient?” -Job
You might think, “Those don’t sound like the words of a hero of the faith.” But, as I’ve been saying, God very often has a different perspective. Here’s God’s opinion of Job:
“Have you considered My servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.” -God
So, seek to see things as God sees them. Today, it might look like your life is a knotted up mess, but that’s how those rope puzzles look, too—right before you solve them!