APR, MAY, JUN 2024 VOLUME 17 Issue 2
“WHY do I question God?” I ask myself. Yet I do… even though I don’t really expect an answer. Maybe I should? Or I should “listen” instead of asking. At any rate, the answer I usually hear from Him is “Trust Me.”
I then remember and start humming the tune to the old hymn I grew up singing: “We’ll Understand It Better By and By.” But, I want—I need—to know now! Or do I?? I think not, otherwise God would answer. How do I know He would? Well, because I’m His child. He loves me. He cares, just as I would not withhold any information I could give if one of my children asked something of me that I could answer. On the other hand, sometimes maybe as a parent I do withhold something I would not want the children to have the burden of carrying, especially knowing there was not a thing in their power to do about it.
Maybe God is that way with us?
Perhaps some questions I’ve had over the years shouldn’t matter, yet there were some I really felt I needed an answer to, like the following:
Why did my mom die at only 47 years of age, leaving Dad with three younger children aged 13, 9, and 6—especially when our entire church family was in fasting and prayer for a miracle?
Why, at only age 67, did my husband pass away suddenly when we were just retiring and looking forward to all the things we had worked hard and planned years for?
Do I have answers to these questions? No! What I do know is that I trust that Father God has a plan for me, for all of us, since the beginning of time. So, I chose to trust that He knows best, knows from beginning to the end of our life. I remember and claim Jeremiah 29:11, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
In the book of Second Corinthians, I read that God the Father is a God who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may also comfort others with the same comfort we ourselves receive. And I believe Romans 8:28, that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Why do these unwelcomed situations and circumstances of life happen? So many questions come to mind. Here again, as we remember “in this world you will have tribulations,” also remember what is written in the Word, again in the Book of Second Corinthians, “We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken... (4:8-9)” For a child of God, even in death we are not to sorrow as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). In all our questions, let us be reminded that our citizenship is not of this world, but is in Heaven. Meantime we are to “occupy till He comes” (Luke 19:13).
As I listen, I hear God directing me to do the work He has called me to do on this earth, to trust and believe in Him and in His Word, and I continue as I look for His promised return.
So, whatever your questions are, just pray and trust Him. He’s got this!
