WHY
Blog – 2-7-19
Have you ever been hung up on the question why? Have you ever believed that if you understood why something happened it would magically make it all better?
I know I have been there. And a man named Job was there as well. Job’s story is a pretty interesting one, and you can find it in the book of Job. Satan is prowling the earth, looking for someone to torment, and God says, what about Job? Satan and God have a dialog where God basically says, “You can do whatever you want to him, but you can’t touch his physical body.” So God basically sets Job up for disaster. Pretty interesting start to this story.
Satan doesn’t waste a minute of time and goes out and kills Job’s sons and daughters, then he kills his servants and his sheep and his camels. Job is a very wealthy man, and he loses everything.
When Job learns what has happened, the first thing he does is fall to the ground in worship. Wow! Job is definitely a man of great faith.
The story doesn’t end there, however, because God then gives Satan permission to touch Job’s flesh. He can’t kill him, but he can hurt him physically. Job gets horrible sores all over his body, and he rubs them raw with broken bits of pottery. He’s a total mess.
His friends come over to try to console him, but that’s a total disaster. His wife tells him to rebuke God, so she’s not much help either.
Finally God speaks to Job in Chapter 38. They have a dialog for the next 5 chapters, and in a nutshell, the thing that trips Job up is when he starts to drink the bitter poison of why. He keeps trying to find out the why behind all of this incredible suffering he has endured.
I get it! That’s exactly what we would probably do in that situation, right?
But the thing is, sometimes we aren’t meant to know the why. Sometimes we are simply called to trust God’s plan for our lives, whether we know the why or not.
I drank the bitter poison of why during my journey through infertility. It was such a dark road for me, very painful physically and emotionally, and I desperately wanted to understand the why. Why did all of my sisters have babies easily? Why were all of my friends pregnant? Why did everything we tried end up in total failure? Why was I the only person I knew who was barren? Why did I suffer for 10 long years?
The why started to consume me. The why ate away at my faith, one bitter piece at a time. The why made me doubt God’s love for me. The why became an obsession, and I thought if I could only uncover the why I would feel better.
If you read Job, God never does tell Job or us the why. And in the end, the why doesn’t matter one bit because once Job surrendered to God’s plan for his life, once he let go of the why, God restores Job’s life to better than it was before. Job 42:12 tells us “The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the first.” God restored his wealth and his family, and Job died old and full of years.
And just like Job, I too found freedom when I finally surrendered the need to know the why. God healed my broken heart and led me to a place of acceptance when I simply trusted His plan for me, whether I liked it and understood it or not. I still don’t know the why, but it no longer matters because I trust that God does. And that’s enough. It truly is.
Are you drinking the bitter poison of why right now, my friend? Are you letting the why destroy your faith one bitter piece at a time? Are you letting the why keep you from experiencing the depth of God’s love for you?
If you are, I encourage you to let go of the why. Trust that God can make the rest of your life the best of your life if you simply let that why go and trust that His plans are best.
I can tell you from experience, you will feel so much better when you do!
Hugs and love,
Jill