A Useful “Why?”

When serious suffering penetrates our hearts, we often ask God, “Why?” Why did I lose my job? Why am I not married? Why did my child die of cancer?  Why did my wife walk out?  Why did my father leave? As an ultimate question, it’s unanswerable.

However, “why” produces insight when we ask it in response to an overreaction. Then we can use “why” to dig deeper. “Why?” in the sense of motivation.

  DSCN6146 Why does my child’s resistance to my control provoke such anger? Why does my husband’s unwillingness to go antiquing with me create such grief? Why does my friend’s cancellation of our shopping date send me to bed with the covers over my head?

Asking why we overreact can lead us to the lies we believe about our own worth and value. Then, asking why we believe those lies yields even more understanding. As a therapist, I often asked “why” repeatedly to help strugglers dig down to helpful insight.  This kind of “why” is also a good question to ask the God who knows our hearts.

The first kind of “Why?” God doesn’t answer. The second one, because it leads to “truth in the innermost parts,” God delights to answer. 

 

Father, help us ask the useful “why” questions and trust the unanswerable “whys” to your goodness.

 

The Light Difference

This is a reasonably well-composed photo. The horizon is off center, the human figures give perspective, and there’s a sense of depth. What makes it one of my favorite photos is the time of day. A few years ago, just before sunset, I’d stepped onto the beach at Seaside, Florida.   Seaside beach, sunset

The light grabbed me. Sometimes that golden hour just before sunset or just after sunrise throws a yellow light, but here, the light was pink and blue. I often keep that photo on my computer desktop in the middle of the Midwestern winter.

I walked this morning in the early light. The brick courthouse glowed and the leafless trees sparkled. The warm light touched even piles of rubbish with beauty.

“I am the light of the world,” Jesus says. (John 8:12) Some of us think we live a good life. Others feel like a pile of rubbish. In either case, it’s Jesus’ light that makes a good life great or an ugly life beautiful. He makes the difference. 

Jesus, let your light shine, on all of us.

  • Coming:  Elisabeth Corcoran, author of He Is Just That into You (Winepress, 2009), will join us here on her blog tour with a guest post on December 4.

Free to Be Wrong

Wrong again.

Yesterday, Jerry’s prostate cancer pathology report showed that the edges of the tissue tested positive for cancer cells, in two spots. Not “We got it all,” like I’d hoped. 

Because the cancer has seemed like spiritual battle, I’d been sure God would win a decisive victory. Nope. Not in the way I expected.

In fact, the lymph nodes are clear. That is decisive. No cancer has migrated away from the prostate bed. In the immediate area, though, some cells may remain to wreak havoc.

God just doesn’t do it the way we expect, does he? We expect him to protect our job, but we get a pink slip. We assume God has his hand on our marriages just before our spouse walks out. Or, conversely, we think our prodigal daughter will never call us again, until the phone rings one Sunday morning.

We are free to be wrong. The longer I walk with Papa-God, the less sure I am about what he’ll do in each situation. But the more sure I am that he is involved. We don’t have to get it right.

me and my son Pictures, Images and Photos

Because, right or wrong, he’s got us. His strong right arm surrounds us. He is working out his plans and purposes, for us and for eternity.

Papa, please give us all grace to relax against the strength of your arm. Thank you.