Why? Why? Why Daddy?
How often I heard those endearing words when parenting my four small sons – and even a very small child can ask questions that are difficult to answer.
I have misty remembrances of asking the same question when I was a small child. And in fact I have never stopped asking – why? It is just that the questions have become more profound and the answers more elusive.
Why have my life experiences been what they have been? Why have I been so blest and why has there been so much tragedy? Why was I blessed with such a rich marriage to then see my darling die at 63 years of age in extreme pain leaving me to carry on without her and having to deal with extensive metastatic cancer of my own?
What did I do wrong to cause all of this I ask? God is ever good so it must be my fault somehow, I reason. But that gets me nowhere. I do not have answers to many things and one of the great dangers of the human intellect is to presume that it does have answers when in reality it can understand so little.
God’s Word tells us that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28). So any fault of mine is forgiven and, somehow, God’s sovereign love will bring good from the seemingly impossible situation for both my wife and I, and I expect good for my family.
“The Lord is my Shepherd …” wrote David. The Shepherd caringly arranges the circumstances of life for those who belong to His flock. But does this make it all smooth and easy? No. The Shepherd promises to be with us but not to avoid he difficult paths.
Elisabeth Elliot wrote of seeing some rams struggle against a shepherd intent on dipping them in a chemical bath:
“I’ve had some experiences in my life which make me feel very sympathetic to those poor rams – I couldn’t figure out any reason for the treatment I was getting from the Shepherd I trusted. And He didn’t give me a hint of explanation. As I watched the struggling sheep I thought, ‘If there were some way to explain! But such knowledge is too wonderful for them – it is high, they cannot attain to it.’ So far as they could see, there was no point whatever.”
I believe that one day God’s people will know the answers to all of their ‘whys’. Then it will all be obvious to them. When liberated from the limitations of bodies of flesh and dwelling in our new spiritual bodies we will enter a new dimension. Will Jesus then sit down and answer all of our questions in detail? Or will it be that when we see Jesus, and are ourselves so like Him, that the light of His presence will reveal all leaving no question unanswered? I think it will be mostly the latter.
I am increasingly of the opinion that whether I know ‘why’ or not in the here and now really does not matter. What matters is that there is Someone Who loves me Who is so great and trustworthy that I do not need to know. He is my Creator and my God in Whom I trust. Instead of keeping on asking ‘why’ it is better that I worship Him.