“Why” is the first question we learn to ask. I remember when my boys first started asking it. Why does grass grow? Why do I have to eat my carrots? Why do I have to go to bed? Why can’t I eat all my Halloween candy? Why do I have to wear pants?
For most of their questions there’s some sort of answer, but after about the 17th “why” in a row you resort to “because I said so” or the good old Christian staple “Because that’s the way God made it”. It’s the be all end all of childlike questions and wonder. It’s the answer that says there are no more answers to be given.
We really never stop asking “why”. As we get older we simply come to higher level of “why”. The questions are more complex and the expected answers along with them. The problem with this new enlightened state of why-ness is that the number of answers is fewer than the number of questions. And the answer “because God said so” seems less satisfying.
Why can’t I stay out past midnight?
Why can’t I date till I’m 18?
Why do I have to go to church?
Why did my mom get cancer?
Why would a loving God let innocent runners get blown up?
It’s the biggest question on everyone’s mind right now? Why? Why would two men bomb the Boston Marathon? What was their purpose? What caused them to do it? And as Christians we turn to God with that inevitable, unanswerable question; why.
Job asked God why after losing everything and in Job 38:2-3 God answers. His answer is almost humorous: “Who are these counselors who speak confusing words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man. I want to ask you some questions and I want you to answer me.” (Clear Word Paraphrase). After dozens of questions thrown at Job over two chapters God concludes with “How long will you continue to contend with me and question my wisdom?” It sound to me like God just used the “Because I said so” excuse.
The answer to “why does God let these things happen” really doesn’t have an answer the Bible can give us. Theologians and scholars have wrestled with the question for millennium. The explanation that has come from the Bible is because God loves us to much to stop us. He’s given us the free will to choose, and with that there aren’t always answers. Like when I come home from work and find my boys joyfully covering the table with finger-paint instead of using paper. When I ask them why they would do that, they don’t have an answer.
But does any of that really help us in a time like this? When so little of what’s going on around us makes sense? When gunmen and bombers run lose in the streets? When rape, murder, starvation, slavery, greed, and poverty are still very much alive in our world, how can we believe in a God who could stop all of it but doesn’t?
Lost within that question is how we see love. Evil must exist because without evil we wouldn’t have the choice to love either. CS Lewis, the writer of the Chronicles of Narnia, says it best “Why did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”
How would we know our love for God is real if we couldn’t choose not to love Him? People choose not to love God, which is the de facto answer to why all this is the way it is. It’s the same reason that we could choose to stop all of it and don’t.
Jesus explained to Nicodemus that “The light has come into the world and men loved darkness rather than the light” (John 3:19). The writer of James says “to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). If we believe there is a God and if we believe that that God is infinitely loving, can He in infinite love take away our freedom and force us to love Him? Can your parents say they love you so much that they don’t allow you out of the house because you might experience pain and suffering?
Rather than asking “why does God let bad things happen”, maybe we should ask “what am I going to do to change it”. Where is God in your life to show you how to use the love He has lavished on you to bring light into the darkness? Maybe the answer to “Why” is yours to
Saturday Morning Muffins 