Understanding God

"Why God?"  I hear that question quite often as I minister to terminally ill patients and their families. Of course, there is no answer I could give them that would truly suffice. What possible response would allow them to think, "Oh, I see!  I'm glad to hear that. I am totally good with thus death, niw that you say that." Really?  No, not really!

The fact of the matter is that we don't need clarity in times like these, we need faith. To even know that God caused or simply allowed the loss and why that might have or have not been is beyond us to begin with for as the prophet revealed, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa 55:9).

We see and understand from a very narrow and limited viewpoint, while "He [God] sits enthroned above the circle of the earth" (Isa 40-:22).  God sees everything and everyone. "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Rom 8:28).  What we don't know is how or why there wasn't some other way. Nonetheless, we can trust in God's love, power and goodness.

Do you remember the biblical narrative where Jesus is in the garden and his weakened humanity cried out, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will" (Matt 26:39)?  His human frame was stretched to the limit and could not fully understand, in the moment, why the burden of the cross was absolutely necessary. Nonetheless, while his clarity was dimmed by the emotional strain of what lay before him, his trust factor allowed him to say "Yes, Father, let your will be done."

What allowed Jesus to accept the burden of the cross along with the weight of mankind's sins and the subsequent separation from the Father was not clarity but faith. Jesus trusted the Father to be good and holy and righteous. He trusted Him to do the right thing even while he himself struggled with it.

You and I need to adopt the same posture of faith and humility that allows us to let go and let God be in charge of our lives regardless of our understanding of the moment. We need to allow our faith to inform our circumstances rather than the other way around. It is not his purpose we need to understand but his person we need to trust. Jus' Say'n.