journey onWord with us

A wife suddenly announces to her husband of 20 years, “I never loved you.”  A position that was going to take the employee to retirement is terminated without reason.  A Good Samaritan loses their life trying to help a person in trouble.  A wedding engagement is inexplicably broken.  A person pours their heart and soul into a project only to be replaced by someone far less qualified.  As you read this, I have a question for you…

W H Y ?

Some years back, the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People , by Harold Kushner, hit the shelves and became an instant bestseller.  The author’s three year-old son had been diagnosed with a degenerative disease, and the doctors felt he would only live into his early teen years.  The author, as he struggled with this crisis in his family, kept asking the question…

W H Y ?

Charles Swindoll (one of my favorite authors) states, “God has trusted each of us with our own set of unfair circumstances and unexplained experiences to deal with.  Can we still trust in Him even if He never tells us why?”  Unfair and unexplained.  I know 98% of you reading this can almost instantly think of an experience in your life that was either unfair or unexplained … or maybe both!  I can, too.  And I bet most of us, at one time or another, navigating through the process asked the question…

W H Y ?

Looking at the life of David, there were many occasions he had to ask, “Why?”  He had tried to serve King Saul with loyalty and bravery.  He had saved the nation by killing Goliath.  He had followed orders well as a soldier of the king.  He tried to respect Saul’s position even though he knew God had ordained him to be the next king (he was willing to wait on God’s timing).  Yet time after time David experienced deep hunger and despair, fear and dread, and was so often on the run for his life.  After repeatedly trying to do the right thing to honor God, David must have asked himself…

W H Y ?

In Psalm 7, David asks this question.  He searches his heart and asks if he’s brought this on himself.  He begs the Lord to reveal to him how he is to blame for this situation.

O Lord my God, if I have done this,
if there is wrong in my hands,
if I have repaid my friend with evil
or plundered my enemy without cause,
let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it,
and let him trample my life to the ground
and lay my glory in the dust.

David is struggling with the feeling that his suffering is something he did not really deserve.  And by verse 27 of that same Psalm, he has resolved to place his confidence in the Lord.

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness,
and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High.

For many of us, not knowing “why” things like that happen is almost mental and emotional torture.  Today, can we strive to replace the “why,” with…

Confidence and Trust

Bad things are going to continue to happen to good people.  With strength as we cling to the Lord and His promises, we can stop asking “Why?” and start praising Him in confidence and trust.