Do You Really Want to Know "Why?" by John Avant

When I was a little child, my parents told me “Why?” was my favorite word. 

“Why Daddy?"   "Why?”

I’ve been asking that same question the last few weeks. Why has God allowed this horrible tragedy in the Texas floods?

I can’t solve the problem of pain in this post, but perhaps it would be helpful to consider what we are really wanting when we ask God “Why?”

• We want to know that God is who He says He is. 

Suffering and tragedy disorient us. We find ourselves doubting and afraid. Even John the Baptist, the one that Jesus said was the greatest man who had ever lived, sent messengers to Jesus to find out if he was really the Messiah. That’s what can happen when you are languishing in prison preparing to lose your head! 

Jesus sent word back to John:

 “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” ‭‭Luke‬ ‭7‬:‭22‬ ‭

He sends the same word to you today. You have seen Him at work! You have experienced His love and His power. 

Trust more in what you know than in what you don’t know.

• We want to know that life makes sense.

Young children drowning in a flood doesn’t make sense. So does the rest of life mean anything? Can we find any sense of security?

This is a tough one. Because in the Western Church, we have been trained to believe that happiness is our chief goal. The number one theme of our Christian music and teaching in America is deliverance from our own suffering and anxiety. But in the persecuted church, and for that matter in the Bible, the purpose of life is something different than that.  

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,” ‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬ ‭

Life only makes sense if we share everything with Jesus, not only his glory, but also His suffering and death.  Then this becomes the purpose of our life.

Life does make sense, but not in the way we would like. The Bible teaches us that even creation itself is fallen and broken (Romans 8:22). So it makes sense that broken things happen in a broken world.  

Life makes sense, but life on this side of heaven will shatter us and break our hearts. 

We don’t want this. I don’t want this. 

But it can drive us to a deeper dependence on Jesus. 

I asked a friend of mine in the persecuted church, who had suffered in prison for seven years, how he had dealt with that. He did not give me a detailed explanation of the ways of God. 

He simply said, “Jesus is Enough.”  

He will be for you too. 

• We want to know that everything will be all right.

When I used to ask my daddy “Why?” a hundred times a day, I wasn’t really looking for a list of reasons. I was looking for him! For his presence and his strength and his security. 

We have that from our Father!

Perhaps the most important gift from suffering and tragedy is that it drives us toward an eternal perspective. Heaven becomes far more important to us than the next promotion, the next car, or the next vacation. And that can lead us toward the life that we live on this earth becoming more eternally significant.

If I did not believe that this passage is true, I would give up my faith in God and finish my life in miserable despair:

“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.””

Revelation‬ ‭21‬:‭3‬-‭4‬ ‭

But it is true!

Everything will be all right!

It is not all right now. But it will be soon.

And so until then, I will live in the tension of Hope and heartbreak: 

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.”

‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬-‭10‬ ‭

“Why?” You ask. 

Me too. 

Keep asking. And you will keep seeing that today, tomorrow, and forever:  

Jesus is Enough.