The Struggle of Why

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.

Soul Ambition

The thing about our personality is that it is so marred and distorted by sin we don't even know really what it is.  We have an idea that we are funny or quiet or rambunctious or generous or thoughtful but what can we know of it as long as we are warped with sin.  Most of us tend to think the best of ourselves; we aren't lazy, we are deliberative, we aren't mean, we are discerning, we aren't perverse, we have an expansive libido.  The free reign we give to self-aggrandizement is startling given the ability we have to see right through the mental tricks others play on themselves.  We say that we know who we are better than anyone else but that is just one more lie of the devil we have swallowed hook, line and sinker.  Just think about your dreams.  They say an awfully lot about yourself and what you harbor within but you can't make heads or tails of them.  It is easy to shine off our dreams as just biological gibberish, white noise of the brain, but they are there within us each day, giving us insight into ourselves and we are just as likely to  blow right past them and roar into our day as notice the stain they reveal.  The human soul is corrupted through and through and the only way out of what we are is to take the Cross of Christ fully and unconditionally.  The crucified death of One meant for the crucified life of the other is in the end a total resurrection for both.  You cannot just get past your sins; they have to be killed off completely and you must if you want to live let this happen.  By faith we receive the death of Christ and make it our death to sin and that is what will happen fully and thoroughly as we give freedom to God to work His way through us.  The Crucifixion of Christ works two ways.  It destroys the work sin has achieved in your death and it crushes your will to live in sin any longer.  The more you accept the cross Christ bore for you, the more you will willingly lay your life down for Him to raise up again.  Mary poured out the perfume on the feet of Jesus because this was intuitively hers alone to grasp as the disciples lounged about.  We pour what is ours out of us for one reason only.  Not for something God might give us to pay us back for our sacrifice but that the warping of sin might be straightened as all we once had gains the life of Christ fully.  Your talents, skills, mental  acuity, personal attributes and disciplines are of no use to you because of the corruption of sin upon them.  Like filthy rags, they are finally in the end worthless.  But give them to Christ and lay them at His feet and you will find them free of the perversion of sin and good for your life and good for all those people about you.  The perfume was never wasted; it was lifted up into heaven and returned back again as a living sacrifice free of selfishness and pride; of use to both God and man. 

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;  you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians  6:19-20 NIV

Stress and Distress

Have you considered the possibility that your physical woes are the result of turning away from the path God set for you?  I know that with Job and what we learn there, we run the risk of being that poor man's miserable friends ourselves but despite that, we have to explore this possibility.  In Psalm 6, the prayer offered is a whimpering moan.  O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Clearly God does do that; it is not absent from His relationship with us.  He does let our flesh be beaten by fleshly agony to get our attention.  Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am faint:  O Lord, heal me, for my bones are in agony.  The body is in distress.  It is flailing in pain and the Lord seems to be letting it happen.  But it is worse than that. My soul is in anguish.  How long, O Lord, how long?  We come here to the point where it is worse even that physical pain.  The soul is in torment.  Where is God?  Why has He left me like this?  What have I done?  Have I been abandoned?  Am I caught in a trap with not even heavenly help?  It is the worst of places because the Christian alone knows the agony of the silence of God.  Those without Christ live only within their simplified minds; they imagine they hear God and make it happen on their own if things get rough.  The atheists and those who just

ignore the Divine proddings never concern themselves with it.  They are contented with a lonely psyche that runs wily nilly about; unrestrained and disorganized.  But the Christian who has heard the voice of God, who has lived within the nubs of the Holy Spirit cannot rest in Divine silence.  She has to hear something.  The longer the pain, the more unfeeling the solitude, the greater the desperation...God must answer, must come to my help.  And here we find the Psalmist; at the third level of supplication.  Turn, O Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.

Have you reached that point?  Have you come to the spot where your desperation turns not to the fairness of God but to His mercy?  Has it come to that where nothing but the kindness of God will get you through to the place He has set for you?  Are you ready to bend to the will of the Holy Spirit and let Him be all your benchmarks, all your orderings?  It is strange to think that perhaps you are in distress because you have comfortably walked down a side road and gotten befuddled by your circumstances.  It seemed so free and easy, so much happenstance before.  Now you know it is Christ who has struck you down; not for His anger but for His mercy to contain you once again.  Can you take the next step?  Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping.  When the Bible, uses the expression, "the Lord has heard", it always means that the matter is settled and His mercy has won the day.  Go back to where you got distracted by fleshly wanderings and look once again for Christ's mercy to guide you.  Our Southern friends can assert that this is true.  At the eye of the hurricane, calm is reawakened.  Stay within the eye; leave the hurricane for those who are infatuated with chaos.