God, I Just Don't Understand

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

God, I just don't understand why my wife has cancer. She loves You and is a faithful Christ-follower. Why, Lord?

Have you ever asked God a question like that? I surely have. In fact, there are a lot of “I don’t understands” in life. Things like why innocent children have to suffer the effects of power-hungry leaders and their lust for power and acquisition of other nations. Like why people cheat and betray each other. Like why hard working, honest men and women can't find jobs. Enough, though, because my list of questions is rather long.

Focusing on the "whys" of life can lead to frustration and fear, which may crowd out our faith in God. It's not wrong to ask Him the hard questions; He doesn't seem to mind. However, when we don't resolve the seemingly unanswered ones, our faith can be shaken.

The hard truth is, many times we don't get answers to our "why" questions. And yet we believe we deserve them. Maybe it's because we can get answers to most of our questions in fewer than 10 seconds by using Google. Do we think God should be just as fast and on demand?

The whys of life can consume us, because we want to know all the answers all the time! We want answers to the big questions as well as the little ones. But that isn’t always possible. Our understanding is human, frail, and woefully limited. It's hampered by emotion and colored by fear. It's also incomplete. On the other hand, God's wisdom and knowledge is perfect. And because He is God, He doesn’t have to explain everything to us—as if we could understand it all anyway! It's hard to accept, but true.

For some, it drives them away from God. For others, it's an opportunity to gracefully submit our limited understanding to God, and lean on Him.