??? WHY ???

Struggling through what life has laid in front of me, I have wrestled with the question “Why?” 

I know that God is good and that His plan is the best, but I just don’t understand why He is taking home to heaven some people who are especially precious to me.   I don’t understand why he has caused one of my dearest friends to become a widow at a young age.  I don’t understand.

I haven’t lost trust in Him.  I haven’t even lost my hope; I am just asking Him for some insight.  I stumbled upon this on a friend’s blog.  She posted an article from Elisabeth Eliott and I love it!

Now is it a sin to ask God why? It’s always best to go first for our answers to Jesus Himself. He cried out on the cross, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’ It was a human cry; a cry of desperation springing from His heart’s agony at the prospect of being put into the hands of wicked men and actually becoming sin for you and me. We can never suffer anything like that, yet we do at times feel forsaken, don’t we? It’s quite natural for us to cry, ‘Why, Lord?’

The psalmist asked why. Job, a blameless man suffering horrible torments on an ash heap, asked why. It doesn’t seem to me to be sinful to ask the question. What is sinful is resentment against God and His dealings with us. When we begin to doubt His love and imagine that He is cheating us of something we have a right to, we are guilty as Adam and Eve were guilty. They took the snake at his word rather than God.

The same snake comes to us repeatedly with the same suggestions. ‘Does God love you? Does He really want the best for you? Is His Word trustworthy? Isn’t He cheating you? Forget His promises. You’d be better off if you’d do it your way.’

I’ve often asked why. Many things have happened which I didn’t plan and which human rationality could not explain. In the darkness of my perplexity and sorrow, I have heard God say quietly, ‘Trust Me.’ He knew that my question was not the challenge of unbelief or of resentment.

I don’t understand Him, but then I’m not asked to understand, only to trust. Bitterness dissolves when I remember the kind of love with which He has loved me–He gave Himself for me. He gave Himself for me. He gave Himself for me. Whatever He is doing now, therefore, is not cause for bitterness. It has to be designed for good, because He loved me and gave Himself for me.

"He knew that my question was not the challenge of unbelief or of resentment"  Yes, I could not have said it better. I know He loves me. I know He is working things out. 

Trust, my child. TRUST! I'm so thankful for a God we can trust! - Rejoicing in the Present