“Why God?,” you cry out in anguish when your world seems like it’s crashing down around you. The question is one that I believe everyone has asked at least once in their life. Even those who don’t even have a relationship with God will look towards a greater being and ask, “Why?” I believe it’s a question that originates with sin. All the way back to the Garden of Eden, mankind has been questioning God. But is it a sin to ask the question itself?
The real question needs to be your heart’s motivation in asking, “Why God?” Are you doubting God’s goodness or are you looking for purpose in the pain?
Satan is the instigator of doubt. Eve was the first to doubt God when the snake caused her to question his word.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”
Genesis 3:1 (ESV)
Eve gave into doubt and her doubt spread to Adam who also ate of the forbidden fruit. The root of doubt is sin. So, asking, “Why God?” in the spirit of doubting God’s goodness, is a sin.
However, if your question, “Why God?” is motivated by your heart searching for the purpose of your pain, that’s a whole other issue entirely. God wants you to be intimate with him and express your innermost concerns. He wants you to dialogue with him about everything going on in your life. Many righteous people in the Bible asked God why he was allowing them to endure pain.
Job
“Why did I not die at birth,
come out from the womb and expire?
Why did the knees receive me?
Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?
For then I would have lain down and been quiet;
I would have slept; then I would have been at rest,
with kings and counselors of the earth
who rebuilt ruins for themselves,
or with princes who had gold,
who filled their houses with silver.
Or why was I not as a hidden stillborn child,
as infants who never see the light?
“Why is light given to him who is in misery,
and life to the bitter in soul,
who long for death, but it comes not,
and dig for it more than for hidden treasures,
who rejoice exceedingly
and are glad when they find the grave?
Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?”
Job 3:11-16, 20-23 (ESV)
In these verses, Job is not questioning God’s goodness. He is asking God what the purpose of his life is. He’s literally asking, “God, why was I born?” After all of his laments, Job expresses his understanding of God’s purpose for his life.
Then Job answered the Lord and said:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42: 1-6
Job asked, “Why God?,” and he received his answer. His pain drew him nearer to God and he came out the other side knowing God all that much more intimately. He knew that God was with him in his struggle.
Then God restores Job’s fortunes, and “the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning.” (Job 42:12 ESV)
David
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Psalm 22:1-2 (ESV)
David is crying out to God, asking him why he has not answered his prayers for rescue. The fact is, God answers each of our prayers. He can either say, “Yes,” “No,” or “Not yet.” In this circumstance, the answer is “Not yet.” But when you’re living out the not yet, our natural response is “Why not?,” especially if we’re suffering.
David, while often lamenting his circumstances in the psalms, is seen by God as a righteous man. David always turned around and praised God in the same psalm where he cries out to God.
David was, as part of God’s plan, a forefather in the lineage of the messiah, who would in his earthly life be called, “Son of David.” The fact is, while David may have been praying these verses for himself, this psalm is prophetic of Jesus’ death on the cross.
Jesus
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Matthew 27:46 (ESV)
I’ve always found this a difficult passage to wrap my mind around. Is Jesus doubting God’s plan here? Absolutely not. The fact is, for a moment, God has forsaken Jesus. He has allowed him to join humanity to its fullest, experiencing excruciating pain in a sentence he did not deserve. He was not doubting God, but crying to God for help. For the first time since his infancy, Jesus was utterly helpless.
God wants us to cry out to him for help. He knows that we are completely helpless without him. Even when we try to do something in our own strength, we come out the other side powerless.
Trusting God’s Plan
When we cry out to God with a heart of searching for answers and pleading for his help, we can do so unashamedly and with righteousness. Sin enters the picture only when we doubt God’s plan. God calls us to have faith in him and his perfect plan.
Psalm 139 brings me great comfort when I begin to doubt God’s plans. David says,
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Psalm 139:1-6 (ESV)
Who better to make plans for our lives, than the one who knows us more intimately than anyone that ever existed, even our own selves? And he made those plans far before we ever existed.
For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
Psalm 139:13-16 (ESV)
That we might understand the depth of God’s understanding of who we are and what his plan is for our lives and trust him to lead us day by day, moment by moment!
Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!
Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV)
God wants us to have pure faith in his plan for our lives. The moment we doubt is the moment we break free from our relationship with him. When our eyes are not on him, Satan grabs our attention, and sneaks in doubt.
Is there a better question?
While “Why?” is a perfectly valid question and one God is happy for us to ask him, I believe there is a better question. Rather than dwelling on the why of the moment, we should instead ask, “What now?” Asking, “Why?” doesn’t get us very far. It risks our trust in him and gives way to doubt. I’m not saying it always goes that way, but dwelling on the “Why?” increases the risk that we will slide easily from “What is your purpose in this?” to “Where is your goodness in this?” When asking “Why?” I believe that moving directly into “What now?” allows us to find something productive to do with the pain. The “Why?” becomes irrelevant when finding something productive to do with the trial becomes prevalent.
The “What now?” could mean finding a counselor and using this difficult time as an opportunity to work on your mental health. Or it could mean gently confronting the person that is hurting you and engaging in a Matthew 18 model of conflict resolution. Or, it could mean standing up for others who are similarly being put in a difficult situation. God does not allow something hard to happen to us so we can sit and wallow in it. He wants us to stand up and do something with it. He doesn’t want us to be stagnant, rather he wants us to come to him and engage with it. When we do that, the “Why” gets answered pretty clearly. When we take part in the hardship we are living, and we trust God to see us through it, we come to find purpose in the adversity.
Go ahead and ask God, “Why?,” but then do the next thing and ask, “What now?”
Bethany Marinelli is an author and speaker out of Orlando, Florida. She also supports her husband, Andrew, in his auto repair business and homeschools her son, Arthur.
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