Asking God "Why?"
October 1, 2002 - Sometimes the question Why? is wrenched from a person—even from earnest believers.
from Ruth Bell Graham
While I was growing up in China, one of our fellow missionaries committed suicide. Overworked and under unbearable pressure, this dear Christian broke.
Left untended for a brief moment, a child of missionaries fell into a tub of scalding water. Not long after that the daughter of those same missionaries died after eating poisonous beans.
Some time later a missionary friend was shot and then beheaded by bandits.
When I was in high school in Korea, a fellow student was killed by a train. His death affected the entire student body.
From time to time throughout our lives, our cry of anguish goes up to God: "Lord God, take away our pain."
But still, pain—unexpected, unendurable, unexplained—continues to strike us.
Nor has our Billy Graham Team "family" been exempted from pain—one son was shot accidentally by his cousin... one daughter suffered severe brain damage from taking illegal drugs... an ideal son died on an operating table... an unexplainable suicide... broken marriages... runaways...
Is it wrong for us to ask, "Why?"
When Moses asked, "Why?"(1) God's answer was, "Now shalt thou see what I will do."(2)
Even our Lord Jesus once asked "Why?"(3)—on the cross at Calvary.
Someone has said that faith never asks why. But surely, involuntarily, one must often cry out, "Why?"
We need to pray for courage to ask the right questions so that we will be prepared for the answers.
PRIVACY
