Why ask Why?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9

Several people in my church have experienced extreme suffering over the past few years.  I posted this message on the church Facebook page last year and decided to resurrect it this weekend after the death of our youth pastor's son.

Our associate pastor pointed out in a sermon last year that God rarely reveals to us the specific reasons for our suffering.  By faith, I accept this fact.  However, when I suffer or see the extreme suffering of others, I can’t help but pray, “why, God?” 

Can we legitimately stand before a holy and omnipotent God and ask this question?  With care to avoid irreverent and selfish whining, I think we can - and should. After all, King David and Job frequently posed the question to God and even Jesus himself prayed on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34).  Surely “why” can find a proper place in our prayers.

    

Like many Christians, I focus too much on “keeping it together” during periods of suffering.  We should study those among us who are able to shed this mask of false bravado and cry out to God with “holy complaining”.  God is visible in their desperate pleas.

God has drawn them especially close, as He often does in the midst of suffering.  In the safety of His embrace, they feel compassion and empathy that dwarf any human estimates of the same.  In feeling His power, they are simultaneously confronted with the truth of His absolute control over all of their circumstances, both good and bad.  This unexpected concoction of awe, comfort, and confusion compels an eruption of desperate, reverent, and hopeful “complaining” to the One who knows every answer and has felt every pain.

In their brokenness, they will progress beyond needing a reason for their suffering. Healing will come from the God of infinite comfort and hope.