Why? Job 38:1-21 The hour is late. Visiting hours are over. The Intensive Care waiting room is quiet now. Only a few people remain—sleeping, keeping vigil, waiting for the latest report on their loved ones. All day long, families have huddled in the corners, exchanging stories on how their loved ones are doing, expressing hope or grief. But it’s late now. The busy—ness is over. You know the doctor will not be peeking her head around the corner any time soon now. And so you settle back, and your mind begins to wander: Why God? Why this pain for my loved one? and for me? Why does he or she have to die this way? And what about that little girl or boy in the room next to him or her? Such a nice family. Why does she have to suffer so? God, if you could only tell me why, I could live with all of this! There are thousands of those kinds of waiting rooms. And they are only one situation in thousands of other situations in which people ask the question, "Why?" "If only I could personally see God and ask him! Then maybe I could accept this situation and go on. Give me a reason, God, and I’ll be content!" Those were the sentiments of Job as he tried to understand his suffering. The sufferer of all sufferers, Job lost all his property and servants and children; he lost the support of his wife and friends; and finally, he lost even his own health. His question was simple: "Why God?" And God came to him, and comes to all of us, with his reply! If you think about it, God could have said many things to Job. He could have laid his hand on Job’s shoulder and told him how much he would grow through all of this. He could have told him of his deal with Satan and reminded Job how important it was that he remain faithful in his devotion to God. Or he could have given some disturbing consolation, like telling him how lucky he was that he didn’t have leukemia. But God took a different approach, quite difficult to understand at first. He simply fires questions at Job, questions from the natural world: "Were you there when I made the world? Who decided how large the world would be? Who stretched the measuring line over it? Do you know all the answers? (vs. 4—5)"Have you been to the springs in the depths of the sea? Have you walked on the floor of the ocean?" (v. 16)"Have you ever visited the storerooms above, where I keep the snow and the hail?" (v. 22)"Can you guide the stars season by season? Can you keep the Big Dipper in place?" (v. 32) The question that’s implied in all these other questions is, "Job, are you powerful enough to duplicate these feats of nature? Are you smart enough to run the world?" He even uses some mockery in v. 21, "I am sure that you can, because you’re so old and were there when the world was made!" In chapter 40:7, God finally makes his point: He says, Stand up like a man and answer me: Are you going to question my wisdom and my power, my judgment, and my design? Are YOU, the creature, in a position to ask ME, the creator of this world, ’WHY?’" Do you really expect to be able to understand the mysterious and deep ways of God? Don’t you think that’s a little bit arrogant?" We would all admit that it’s arrogant to think that, with no training at all in the intricacies of the human brain, we could perform brain surgery. Yet we expect to understand the plan and the wisdom of God and the depth of the human situation, as viewed from the point of God? To that, God says, Remind yourself who you are. You are the creature. I am the creator. Don’t misunderstand——God knows why we ask the question. God realizes that we want to know, usually for very understandable reasons, why things happen to us. After all, God created us. He knows our desire to rationally explain things, to connect things together that belong together, to see cause and effect relationships where they exist. But he says to Job and to us, "You expect too much of yourself if you expect to get complete, satisfactory answers to those questions. You forget who you are and who I am. You forget that you are the creature and I am the creator when you assume that you can understand all the rhyme and reason and mystery of life!" Now, we can react in different ways to this non—answer by God to the question WHY. 1. We can react with hatred and hopelessness: "I’ll never know! And if I can’t know, then this world doesn’t make any sense and I give up!" That is a common attitude of us today, and the by—product of that is profound disbelief about life——its meaning, its value, its purpose. God’s reply to Job strikes at the pride of the modern person who thinks that because we can use or build an iPhone that puts the world’s information at our fingertips, we ought to be able to understand all things. This is often our first reaction when we are thrown into a situation of suffering. We want to know why. We demand to know why. And if we can’t figure it out, then nothing makes sense. We despair. 2. Another way to react is to come up with an answer of our own making——some answer, any answer.. Even though we could see that these are very attractive and tempting explanations, and we often buy into them and cleverly live by them (which is why we have to expose them), we’ll see that neither is ultimately satisfying. 3. But there is another reaction. When we face squarely the fact that we don’t have answers to our why’s, we may finally be in a position to appreciate a new what FAITH is, namely believing certain things about life even when we cannot understand all the why’s of life, believing, beyond what we can understand, in the one in whom all things do hold together. Hebrews says, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Another translation says, "Faith is the conviction of things not seen." Faith says, "God, I don’t understand this, but I believe you are sovereign, that you rule, and that you are good, and I put my trust in you. And therein is my peace, not in my ability to understand." then we can be freed from the pain of the question. And we can live with hope and freedom when we get it straight who we are and who God is. As Job says (42:5) "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you." If Job could say, "My eyes have seen you," because he had such an overwhelming conviction of God’s presence and power and goodness, how much more can we, who have seen Jesus Christ, God come down to us, suffering with us and for us, rising to give us hope — how much more can we say today, "Oh God, when I look everywhere but toward you, I am filled with doubt and wondering and even anger and despair. But when I look at you, I am healed, I am held, I am secure." May God fill us with faith and hope and peace, this day and forever more.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 14:27:12 +0000
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