By Jim Hukill
Some would say that it is not for us to question God. He is after all the creator of all things. Perhaps! However, it appears to me that God's shoulders are big enough for us to rest our perplexing inquires upon. In the midst of suffering/pain, human nature lifts its voice and screams, "Why, God, why?"
Many of the greatest heroes of the bible confronted God with questions that demanded a divine response (Moses, Jonah and Job). The authors of Psalms & Habakkuk are included in this list.
As with many questions of 'why,' there is buried beneath the surface a feeling of injustice. Human inquires, even demands for God to give some accounting for the seeming unfairness.
Listen to the crushing anguish plea of the prophet Habakkuk. "How long, O Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." (Habakkuk 1:2-4 NIV)
The disappointment we get from reading these verses from Habakkuk is within the context of when one sees the injustice of life and feels helpless in changing the circumstances. This suffrage rips and tears at the fiber of one's soul until the hurt is so intense that it demands a response from the human suffer.
Yet, as human kind, we find ourselves in a place where no other species on earth ever reside. We are suspended on the swinging bridge of reason between suffering and emotional resolution. The proverbial space we call "Why?" Enormous insecurity seizes us with a desperation for an heroic act and a stabilizing command for calm. There between the crisis and the meaning of it all come the insatiable questions…
Why, God, why?
Who is responsible for…?
How did this happen?
What did I do to deserve this?
What's next?
What do I do now?
Where do go for here?
On and on they go. The more the questions come, the more unstable our lives become. The greater the instability, the more complex and distressed the question. Our appetite for reason and resolve grows insatiable until we are sucked into a vacuum of personal despair.
There is so much to say about those questions that scare us, stare at us, taunt us and perplex us. Maybe soon I'll speak more of these inquires to our maker. But for now I'll leave you with perhaps one response resounding through the hall of heaven from the almighty Himself...
GOTCHA!
There in the middle of our human suffrage we become desperate for Him to speak. In a web of uncertainty we are desperate to hear Him. We are right where He wants us; weak, worn out, collapsed desiring to hear His voice.
