Asking Why This Instant!

I don’t know why cancer takes a child.

I don’t know why some wives miscarry once, twice, five+ times.

I don’t know why she had to lose both legs. 

I don’t know why so many daughters don’t have daddies and sons don’t have fathers.

I don’t know why the imagination puts itself in a dingy box labeled “pornography” and traps itself there. 

I don’t know why some couples say their vows at 19 and never part until cozying up to a century, while others navigate a beautiful life with never a partner to share it with.

I don’t know why his marriage was torn apart when she decided she wanted a wife instead of a husband.

I don’t know why being wrapped in brown skin subjects her to a lifetime of “less than.” 

I don’t know why the brain deteriorates and the body breaks down.

I don’t know why mental illness is real.

I don’t know why some are born handicapped.

I don’t know why his future vanished in an instant, crushed by steel on that otherwise silent, pre-dawn road.

I don’t know why the only acceptable atonement for sin required ripping apart the triune God and torturing Him to death.

I don’t know why love hurts so much.

 

Why.

We have a million whys, you and me. 

What do we do with them?

 

Ignore them? Swim in them? Suffocate under them? 

Chris Stapleton, in “Broken Halos,” sings, “Don’t go asking Jesus why. We’re not meant to know the answers, they belong to the by and by.” 

Is that the answer? To simply not ask them? 

I don’t know. And I don’t have the answer that’s going to take away your whys. 

I do know we have options. We can ask why if we want to, or we can sit quietly beside our whys. We can pretend they don’t exist, or we can shake hands with them and acknowledge their presence. We can lift them up and release them, or we can wrestle with them until breathless with exhaustion. We can release our whys in a flood of tears, or we can drink them in and digest them. 

There’s no right or wrong way to handle our whys. 

When my whys are a wolf pack, snarling and closing in on me, my own hunt becomes one for safety, for peace. All I want is to run to my Shepherd. He’s unfazed by wolves. I just want to go and sit with Him. Go and cry there. Go and rest under His staff. Go and be me—the me He saw fit to bring into the world; the me He knew would ask a thousand whys; the me He knew couldn’t handle the answers.

You and me, we’re human. We’re born into finite flesh and blood. While we’re fearfully and wonderfully made, our skin is vulnerable to prey. I know this full well. 

So, for now, I beeline for Jesus and let my whys follow. In His presence we all sit. Somehow, my questions don’t consume me there. They lose their fear factor. And while they’re usually relentless, around Him they settle down. They get sleepy.

Funny thing about Jesus’ presence ... I used to try to escape it. Why press into a God who keeps answers from me? I figured I’d fight my whys solo … find my own answers. But when I tried, I got eaten alive. Misery, every time. 

I no longer try to assert my independence from my good Shepherd … simply because it hurts too much. I wasn’t created to wander alone among wolves. 

Do your whys chase you? Haunt you? Hold you captive? Leave you numb? What if, instead of finding answers to pacify them, you found peace sans answers? What if you let your whys join you in the vast, open field of the good Shepherd’s sweet, consuming love? Could you and your whys lay down together, under His staff, and be?  

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." —Isaiah 55:8-9

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." —John 10:11

Google Unanswerable Questions This Instant!

You know you have a problem when you find yourself Googling: “What should I do with my life?” 

Google, apparently, is just not the fountain of answers it’s cracked up to be.

I was at a young professionals’ leadership development course the other day. About 50-60 of us from all around town crammed into a board room in the first of several monthly meetings. The instructor had us break into groups so we could talk and get to know others we’d never met before. I loved my group. Three guys and three gals. All were people-people and we really hit it off. I even learned that my voice makes a good first impression. Something led to someone saying my voice was soothing or attractive or had great cadence or nice inflection … or some kind of combination of those. One person even ventured to say that I (rather, my voice) should be on OPB. Okay! I will take these perfectly random perfect-stranger compliments.

Anyway, I digress. Later in the class we were told to draw our passions on the back of our name cards. I drew the easy ones – a tree and mountains and a river (outdoors), a running shoe (health), and a cross (my faith). Then I just kind of sat there. I looked over at my new friend, Nate, on my left. He was looking off into space. I looked around at everyone else in our group. They were furiously drawing. I looked back at Nate. He looked at me.

“Uh…..”

“I know,” I said.

We just sat there, passionless.

Then he said, “What if my passion is finding my passion?”

“Totally,” I nodded without missing a beat. “I get that.”

So he drew (wrote) just that on his card.

I didn’t want to copy him, so I continued to sit there. But what he said resonated with me on a thousand levels.

I was never the five-year-old who knew I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up. Or the fourth grader who so adored my teacher that it sealed my fate as an educator. No, I went to college and majored in communications simply because I needed all the help I could get communicating with others!

Today, finding my passion is exactly what I am passionate about. I spend countless hours on this trail. I don’t know what it is I’m looking for exactly, but I am looking, and looking hard for it!

Where does one look to find their passion? Well, Google is instinctively and obviously our first choice. Right? We Google everything these days. But when that turns up fruitless, maybe we turn to other people. Talking with those you’re closest with and asking for feedback is a foolproof way to gain invaluable insight. Then there are books. A friend just sent me “48 Days to the Work You Love” and I can’t wait to unearth some gems of direction there. Then there are the heaps of introspection that come all too easily for the introverts among us.

But what about the Source, the only One with any kind of answers worth listening to at all? The One who made you, formed you, and Himself created all your desires and longings – realized and unrealized – within you? When life’s big questions loom like stormy rain clouds damp and dank over your head, will you set aside your technology and media long enough to tap into your Creator Himself? I’m convinced He has something specific to say to each of us. It may take time, but one day I believe the answers will be clear, and tangible. 

In the meantime, I’m going to go Google a recipe for dinner.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock ad the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

“ … the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2: 2-3