Why (part 1)

Why do You stand afar off, O Lord?
Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?
– Psalm 10:1

Anyone who has spent time with children will be familiar with strings of “why” questions. They go something like this: WHY is she eating? Because she is hungry. WHY? Because she hasn’t eaten for several hours. WHY? Because she has been working. WHY? Because she needs a job to make money. WHY? Because she needs money to buy stuff. WHY? WHY? WHY? It can keep going until you just give up on the possibility that the conversation will bear fruit.

As we mature, the “why” questions become more serious, touching topics of profundity in life, even probing the mysteries of God and divine will. Often the questions come because life realities cause unrest within us. We hoped for one thing and got another. We expected certain things from God, yet God, for reasons unknown to us, didn’t come through. Unlike the “why” questions of a child, ours will not be easily dismissed. With tears and shaking fists, we demand to know why.

So here’s a question: why do questions sometimes go unanswered? Maybe because we haven’t found someone who knows the answer, or maybe because the person knows but doesn’t want to give the answer. Could it be that it is not yet time for the answer to be known? Or that it is somehow best for us to not know the answer? These considerations wouldn’t do much to quiet the spirit of the psalmist. They probably don’t help to quiet ours either. Yet here we are, asking God why and waiting for an answer that will satisfy our sense of justice or align with our mental profile of divine will.

Timothy Keller shared a wise word on this topic in a lecture series he did years ago. I won’t get the quote exactly right, but the point is clear. “If you have a God big enough to be mad at, you have a God big enough to know something you don’t.” If you read the narrative of Job in the Bible, you will see that this is where Job ended up with God. Job pleaded for answers that would make sense of his suffering. God’s eventual reply to Job was, in essence, “you don’t know all that I know.” And that is true, for Job and for the rest of us. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

Though we continually find ourselves yearning for answers, I expect that we often wouldn’t understand the answers even if God gave them to us. People regularly come to me with “why” questions. Too often for comfort my simple response is, “I don’t know.” What I do know is this: at times when I do not understand the ways of God, I can always trust the character of God. Of this I grow more certain with each passing year of life.

Stand by. We will revisit “why” soon.