No One Knows Why
   

No one knows why. Parents, emotionally overcome with grief and even anger towards God (2 Sam.6:6-9), sit beside a coffin too small and too soon; so small that it never should have needed to have been made - and too soon for no parent should have to outlive their child. The only word on their lips is, "Why?" No one knows.

No one knows why. Husbands, excited, expectant dads, share an all-too-brief moment of exhilarating hope and joy with their wives; no longer being relegated to a waiting room...until a somber doctor asks him to leave. Only one will make it. Only one word forms on his trembling lips - "Why?" No one knows.

Feel-good theologians pat the disheartened soothingly, saying, "They were so good, God wanted them in Heaven with Him." Maybe, but even my soul shouts - "But don't we need all the good people we can find down here? Why would God need all the good people with Him? Isn't God good enough without them?"

Pragmatists counter that bad luck is the only culprit. Maybe, but is luck the only governing source in this universe? If so, then we better start praying to the god of luck! Where is our God when "bad luck" ruins our lives?

O.K., then, feebly we all ask, "Why?"

Life, experience, Bible study, prayer, soul-searching - all lead to a conclusion that is better believed than felt. I have no simple, feel-good answers. I believe God's hand is everywhere. I also believe that God sometimes chooses to pull back that protective hand and let nature, or sin's consequences, run its cruel course. That is His sovereign right. Sometimes, though, His choice leaves us asking, "Why?"

Death is everywhere, all around. Sometimes it's as if death is as omnipresent as God Himself.

Ultimately, sin is the cause of all death; but babes are innocent of sin, and so are God's children. So why don't only the evil die? No one knows why.

Wasn't the apostle James one of God's children? Wasn't Peter also? Both were privileged to be part of Jesus' "inner three." Jesus loved both. No one knows why God allowed James to die while setting Peter free (Acts 12:2-11). But from the mind of Paul, God blessed James more so than Peter - "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21). That is easier to believe than to feel.

All of these questions lead me to choose something that will soothe my soul.
· Some choose to believe there is no God. I do not want to be that alone.
· Some choose to believe that God does not care. Again, that leads to loneliness.
· Some choose to believe that God is powerless to help. That leads to fear.

· Some choose to believe that they are not God, they do not have the answers, and they

would rather choose to admit their own mental, spiritual, and emotional inadequacy - so

that they can trust God rather than themselves. This is what I choose.

In the end, none of us can honestly say we have answers; honesty breeds within both the righteous and unrighteous the same, soul-piercing, omnipresent question - "Why?"

Some theologically affirm that everything happens for a reason. This assumes God causes all things. I haven't found that in scripture.

My place on this earth is not to find that answer or reason, but to glorify God in all things, to glorify Him Who, one day, can reveal that answer to me...after I myself suffer and die, leaving loved ones to ask, "Why?"
           
Perry D. Hall