Feb
26
2021
Asking Questions
Posted in Poetry 4 Comments
This poem was originally published on October 14, 2013.
I have made some minor changes, since it was written over seven years ago.
It is worth reading again.
Every little child asks,
The famous question, Why?
We come to You, O Father,
With our groaning and our sighs.
There is so much unanswered,
So much to understand,
No clarity in Your higher ways,
Not sure of all You planned.
How do we even have our faith?
Is it a gift from You?
Can we trust Your goodness,
To always see us through?
Sometimes it makes no sense at all,
Why Your people suffer so.
Sadness and brokenness everywhere,
No matter where we go.
We give our explanations,
We justify our tears,
We offer up our suffering,
We rationalize our fears.
Yet when we’re all alone in bed,
With just our thoughts to think,
Your goodness and bad things happening,
Just seem so out of sync.
Couldn’t You write Your name in the sky?
Couldn’t You make it clear?
Couldn’t You yell through a megaphone,
So everyone would hear?
We read Your Word and understand,
Until the next hard verse,
Instead of feeling better,
Sometimes we just feel worse.
Shootings, killing, children die,
Taken much too soon.
If You would give a reason why,
Write Your answer on the moon.
You say there is a greater good,
That You’re working all the time,
For those that love You and are called,
To Your purposes sublime.
You allow us to ask questions,
You welcome heartfelt prayers,
But the answer that we really need,
Is that You’re truly there.
There in all our struggles,
There in all our pain,
There in our confusion,
That our suffering’s not in vain.
You are God and we are not,
That is surely true.
If we somehow had You figured out,
Then You would not be You.
God is love and God is just.
Both things the same time true.
We really don’t want You to be fair,
We want Your mercies anew.
Fairness a human quality,
Mercy is Divine.
You never let go for a minute,
You hold us and say, You’re mine!
That really is enough for us,
That’s all we need to know,
We don’t go through this life alone,
You’re with us wherever we go.
There is a way to really know,
The answer to the Why of God.
It’s knowing Jesus, the Shepherd,
His voice, His staff, His rod.
In Jesus, Innocence suffers,
For the unrighteous, the Righteous will die.
The sin of the world on His shoulders,
Even Jesus asked You, Why?
Jesus asked for a different way,
There’s no Crown without the Cross,
Jesus laid down His will for Yours,
He suffered to save the lost.
It is very difficult,
To understand Your ways,
At the end of our quest and confusion.
There will only be worship and praise.
Questions are a good thing.
Often, there is no answer that will satisfy our hurting soul.
We feel as if our question just begs another question.
In the end, we are more confused.
We can always find answers to our questions in God’s Word.
Yet, without looking at the whole of Scripture, our answers are out of context.
The ONLY answer to all of our questions is the presence of God.
God incarnate. God in the flesh. Jesus.
We can sit for hours and try to find answers to our specific questions.
Apart from Christ, the answers will never satisfy.
The answers become textbook answers that have no connective-ness apart from Jesus.
Job wanted his day in court.
God said Job was blameless and upright.
If Job was blameless, he wanted to know why he was suffering.
The age-old theodicy question: If God is good, why is there suffering?
Our finite minds, cannot resolve this question.
It doesn’t make sense to us.
We think that if it doesn’t make sense to us then the problem is with God.
It will never make sense to us because we are not God.
We can’t figure God out, because He is totally “other”.
God allowed Job to lament and ask all his questions.
But then God answered Job’s questions with His own questions.
They are unanswerable questions unless you are God.
Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. “You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:1-6)
If we we were able to understood God’s ways and figure Him out, He would not be God.
We must ask God for the faith to believe.
We need His help so we can trust Him even when we don’t understand.
God is God and we are not.
Amen!
Amen!
And, Amen, Janna.
Blessings,
Gina
Thanks for the reminder of God’s sovereignty.
I need the reminder, too, Paula.
Blessings,
Gina