Day 26 Why?

 

Day 26        Why?

 

Even now…after I have begun to move forward from my pain…and I am allowing God to apply his love to the pain, bandage it with his sweet mercy, and heal the gaping hole in my heart where Mitchell used to be…I still find myself asking why? So many times I cry myself to sleep…hold tightly to his shirt and pray…or fall to my knees at an altar…to ask God this unanswerable question.  Our human heart wants a reason…a purpose for our pain; but does God’s love demand that we just accept it as a way to grow and multiply our strength in serving him?

Could it be the answer came to me as I read in Exodus one evening. Here are a mighty people of God…suffering day after day from the afflictions of their bondage.  My eyes only made it to verse 11, when I read, “But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were grieved because of the children of Israel. “

The Lord used the captivity of the children of Israel to teach and train them for the long journey ahead. They grew strong physically from the labor making bricks. They grew mentally as they figured out ways to hide and protect their young babies. They grew spiritually as they feared God more than they did the mandates of Pharaoh.  God allowed the people to suffer to teach them the skills they would need to survive the next 40 years…the wilderness he would lead them into would require great physical strength, keen mental awareness, and great faith in the God who would save them.

And as soon as I read and received this wisdom from the Lord…my humanness….my pain…still questioned my loss.  Even after prayer...even after I asked God to help me remember this story and how strong he can make me when I am suffering…I found my weakness…my need to ask why… still a prominent part of my being.  Why is it so hard to let this go? 

Maybe it isn’t so bad to question our pain…and what happened to some of the real people of bible times when they posed this question o God?  Rebekah  posed this question to God in Genesis 5 when she struggled with her pregnancy…and God gave her an answer.  I am thinking that if I were given this answer…my mom brain would be more worried than I was before.

²¹And Isaac intreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren: and the LORD was intreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

²²And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the LORD.

²³And the LORD said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger.

²⁴And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, there were twins in her womb.

Moses posed the question why to God…oh how he must have felt my need to question the purpose of his calling.  As he watched his Hebrew brothers suffer….as he waited for god to make his move…he questioned God with the “why” of his calling.

²⁰And they met Moses and Aaron, who stood in the way, as they came forth from Pharaoh:

²¹And they said unto them, The LORD look upon you, and judge; because ye have made our savour to be abhorred in the eyes of Pharaoh, and in the eyes of his servants, to put a sword in their hand to slay us.

²²And Moses returned unto the LORD, a

+nd said, LORD, wherefore hast thou so evil entreated this people? why is it that thou hast sent me?

²³For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in thy name, he hath done evil to this people; neither hast thou delivered thy people at all.

 

Gideon questioned God too.  He saw the angel of the Lord and bravely posed the question why.

¹²And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him, and said unto him, The LORD is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.

¹³And Gideon said unto him, Oh my Lord, if the LORD be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of, saying, Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt? but now the LORD hath forsaken us, and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.

¹⁴And the LORD looked upon him, and said, Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites: have not I sent thee?

¹⁵And he said unto him, Oh my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.

¹⁶And the LORD said unto him, Surely I will be with thee, and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man.

Even the great Job questioned why he had been placed on this Earth after all his sufferings…more than once…

Job 3

¹After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.

²And Job spake, and said,

³Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.

⁴Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.

⁵Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.

⁶As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.

⁷Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.

⁸Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.

⁹Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark; let it look for light, but have none; neither let it see the dawning of the day:

¹⁰Because it shut not up the doors of my mother's womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

¹¹Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

¹²Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

¹³For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

 

David wrestled with the why of things as well.  So many of the Psalms record him asking God why.

Psalm 10

¹Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?

Psalm 22

¹My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

Psalm 43:5:

⁵Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

 

Bottom line….Why?…should we ask?…well the scriptures give us three scenarios if we do.  When we ask why we might get an immediate answer like Rebekah…an answer that may be harder to understand than the reason we posed the question in the first place. The lesson here…reasons are sometimes revealed because we need to make important decisions…ones that shape an entire nation of believers.  Sometimes when we ask why….God will be silent….silence for Moses, Gideon, and David meant an increase in their faith.  He simply did not reveal his purpose so he could build faith and work his mighty miracles in their lives and the lives of the people he had given them to lead. And Job…sweet Job….his reasons for asking why were more like mine…he just needed to call out in pain….to vent…and even that was okay with God.

 

Maybe some day I can be more like Moses…maybe some day God will build my faith because I walk daily with him and seek his wisdom in daily prayer and bible reading. And someday I will be able to accept his choices….because like David I will praise him…even as I continue to ask why?  I will praise him for he alone can someday reveal to me why I lost my sweet Mitchell…why he only gave me this gift for such a short time. Like David…I will lift up my voice and thank him for all the other blessings he gives me daily and worship him for his goodness and mercy.