Romans 9:20 NIV
But who are you, O
man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
'Why did you make me like this?'"
Do You Have a “Why” Question For God?
Growing up, like you, I had many “why” questions for
my parents…most of which I knew better not to ask. Why do we have to have a Volkswagen bus
instead of a normal car? Why do you
serve peas for supper? Why do I have to
wash the dishes? Why can’t we watch my
favorite TV shows? Why would you think
mashing the roast beef with the potatoes and carrots and peas and onions and
other quasi food items, mixing them together and calling it “hash” would be a
good idea? Why can’t I watch the second
feature at the drive-in too? How come my
allowance is so small? Why don’t we take
more votes when family decisions are made?
What made you think that a baby blue polyester leisure suit should be my
Christmas present? Could I get my hair
cut by someone who earns his living at it?
Can we listen to something other than country western music? Why does Dad need to know about my
grades? Can we go to Disney Land for our
vacation rather than camping this year? What
“Why” questions would you ask of your parents if you could?
Perhaps you ask them why they treated you like you
did, or why was your brother or sister the “favorite child”. Maybe you would ask about a relative who was
kind of strange or whether they were happily married or glad about their career
choices or what they really thought of God.
We might have lots of questions we would ask of our parents if we
thought it appropriate or if it was possible.
Are there “why” questions you have for God? What do you “wonder why” about God’s dealings
with you? Do you have lots of “why”
questions for Him or just a few? What is
your most important “why” question for the Lord?
Our “why” questions seem to grow in magnitude and
number when the toughness of life bears down upon us. There are a number of ways we attach causation
to the difficulties and painful parts of their existence. One is bad luck. There is we guess some force in the universe
that operates and sometimes the coin turns up heads and other times tails and
when it is good luck we try to keep doing what we are doing and when it is bad
luck, we scramble for ways to “change our luck”. We wear different kinds of clothes, take a
different route to work, give a homeless person an extra dollar. We can just assume that everything that
happens is random and without any sort of organization. Jackson Pollock famously painted using random
drips and drops and splatters to create his art and it represented this idea,
that there is neither rhyme nor reason to life; it is just a bunch of splatters
shot about by mindless nature. There is
another way to look at the tough parts of life and that is to blame it all on
Satan. Satan is the one who takes our
lives apart and ruins them to satisfy his cruel fancies. A fourth view of these rough times is to
guess that God is mad at us and punishing us.
Sometimes we see God as cruel for He deals with us more harshly than we
deserve. Like Job, we know we haven’t
been perfect but why does He come down on us as hard as He does?
Now we must see what the Bible says about those
rough times we have faced. Hebrews 12:
5-6 gives us deep insight into what goes on behind the scenes when painful
experiences come our way. And you
have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: "My
son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he
rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes
everyone he accepts as a son." (NIV) Now what is almost irritating in
this is that we are told that the very experiences that tear us apart and make
us miserable and even angry should encourage us. How can we be encouraged by the loss of our
job, by the long and painful illness, by the troubles we have with our children
and by the discouraging things people say to us? It is impossible unless we have Christ
dwelling within us and we understand what God is doing for us.
We must realize that there is a real possibility
that we may not even be aware of how much work God has to do with us. When David committed adultery with Bathsheba
and had her husband killed, he had no idea just how badly he had acted. It is strange to consider that David, the
author of so many of the Psalms in the Bible could have thought it was ok to
have sex with another man’s wife and then order the general of his army to
position that man on the battle lines at such a place that he would be killed. One evening David got up from his bed and
walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing.
The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The
man said, "Isn't this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of
Uriah the Hittite?" Then David sent
messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her…In the morning
David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, "Put Uriah in the front
line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be
struck down and die." (2 Samuel 11: 2-4, 14-15 NIV) It seems David had
grown comfortable with what he had done…so comfortable that he had no qualms
about marrying the woman after her husband died. When Uriah's wife heard that her husband
was dead, she mourned for him. After the
time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became
his wife and bore him a son. But the thing David had done displeased the Lord. (2
Samuel 11:26-27 NIV)
This is critical to realize when it comes to the
psychology of sin. We can sin and sin
egregiously and not even rattle our conscience.
There is a masking agent attached to many sins that can render the
conscience impotent. We have seen this
often in our personal experiences; Christians and non-Christians alike not
aware that what they have done was wrong.
We may think that they are just trying to cover up their sin by
pretending they don’t see anything bad in their behavior but we would be wrong
in many cases. Like David, the sin
itself has put the conscience to sleep in the matter. The mechanism for this is beyond our
discussion today but it is too ubiquitous a phenomenon to ignore. In David’s case, he went nine months without
being affected by the damage he had caused.
It was only after the prophet Nathan confronted him that David grasped
the immensity of his evil acts. “Why
did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You
struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.
You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites...Then David said to Nathan,
"I have sinned against the Lord." (2 Samuel 12:9, 13 NIV)
Because sin damages our personality so severely and
the habit of sin is so difficult to stop once it gains momentum, God chooses to
intervene with those He loves. He
“disciplines” them, Hebrews 12 insists.
The word translated “discipline” means to train up, nurture, instruct,
correct. It is often used in conjunction
with children; it is in many ways a family term. In Christ, we are a part of His family and we
are His children. Because of the
severity of David’s sin and the great damage it was causing among God’s people,
the Lord disciplined the king ruthlessly.
He took David and Bathsheba’s son and promised David that other children
of his would rise up against him in rebelllion.
That was a dreadful blow; a horrendous shot. David prayed with weeping when the baby
Bathsheba bore became deathly ill so we know it was terrible for David but God
did not give in to David. He took the
child and later two of his adult children tried to wrench the kingdom from
him. The discipline of God was severe.
It takes faith to believe that a father or mother punishes
you out of love. You can’t just accept
the discipline at face value as good…at least not when you are a child. As adults or young adults, we too need faith
to believe the harsh moments in our lives are part of God’s work with us done
in love. The one to one correspondence
is almost never as neat and easily recognized as we saw with David. You have adultery and murder in you. I will take that out of you with this
discipline. Much of the time we cannot even
figure out what we might have done wrong when God disciplines us. God’s promise though is that the hard times
never come because God hates us or because they just happen, always God is in
charge of what we face and it is never because He despises us. There is a second term the Lord uses in
Hebrews 12: 6. …the Lord disciplines
those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." (NIV) The
word translated “punishes” means to “scourge”.
It is discipline capitalized. No
one can describe this as easy or comfortable.
Remember, Jesus was “scourged”.
We realize that there are many parts of us that God must work on with
severity and we may cry when we face what he gives us. God’s goal though is not for here; it’s that
later we will be rid of every ounce of sin and settled in holiness…perfect
children of a perfect God.
Our goal is comfort.
We love to be able to relax and enjoy the ride. God’s goal is holiness. He loves to develop perfect people. These two goals can be at loggerheads;
butting up against each other like two mountain goats. As He disciplines you, our Lord is proving
your holiness; showing you and all those watching you what sort of person you
are in Christ. He is making you strong
that your strength can be transferred to those not as strong as you, making you
forgiving so that your forgiveness can be transferred to those not as forgiving
as you, making you kind toward those who mistreat you so that your kindness can
be transferred to those not as kind as you.
My father went through special training that he might protect those who
would need his strength and help. You
are being trained by God that you might of great good for those He brings into
your life. If you are not trained to be
patient, someone who needs your patience won’t have it when she needs it. If you are not disciplined to be at peace
with the storm, those who face the storm may not have enough peace to get past
it. The one who grieves finds great
comfort in a friend who has grieved herself.
You are not your own. You were
made by God to be a perfect friend to each one you meet. The storm you face is for them…not just for
you.
No comments:
Post a Comment