My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame. | Psalm 22:1–5
Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Let the avenging of the outpoured blood of your servants
be known among the nations before our eyes! | Psalm 79:10
As we work through the book of Job on Sunday mornings, we have seen Job crying out to God to make sense of his current situation, as well as the overwhelming injustice that exists in the world. As we saw this week, Job’s high view of God forces him to reject many of the partial answers that are offered. He sees God as fully in control of all things, and thus, the one who is both the reason for all things (though not the source of sin and its destruction which exist because of rebellion against Him) and the only hope to save this world and repair all of the damage that has been done. Job knows God has the answer, so he goes to him with the question: WHY GOD?
I have always found it very comforting that the Bible contains this question in so many places. We see coming from the Psalmist above, we hear Jesus repeat these words on the cross, and nearly every prophet and apostle comes to a place where they are confused by how God chooses to operate. This is a comfort to me, because when I face this same quandary: why would God choose to function like this? I know that I am in good company.
It also means that we can’t come to the conclusion that God forgot to include this information for us. If God wanted to give us an easy, straightforward answer to this question, He had plenty of opportunities. Every time a faithful saint asks, God could have just explained it. For Scripture to continually ask this question, but not give a simple answer, means that God is intentionally keeping this from us.
People have very different responses to that last statement. Those who tend to approach God from a humanistic standpoint see God being unfair here: how dare He put us here and demand worship when He refuses to give us all of the information that we both desire and deserve. Those who approach God in reverence assume that He must have His reasons: it is a struggle but He is God and I am not. Many just don’t know what to do with the fact that this world does not seem to operate in a way that makes God’s goodness and glory obviously true.
As the Psalmist points out in Psalm 79: God should be known! He should act to quiet all doubt; He should give us a reason that puts all others to shame. If I were God, people would know it!
We are left in a place where we have to live with an incomplete description. Let me be clear, God has not left us with nothing, or even just a little. He tells us that creation reflects Him (Romans 1:20). It has been marred from its original design by sin (Romans 8:20). He is seen most clearly in its redemption (Galatians 4:4-7). This redemption is manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:3). In time, every knee will bow to Him (Philippians 2:9-11). In this, everything will bring God glory by revealing His holiness and sovereignty, in both grace and judgement (Revelation 20-21). Rather than giving us a description that easily makes sense of any specific situation, God reveals to us a grand story in which He is weaving all events towards a magnificent end in which His glory is proclaimed, not only once and for all, but in a way that answers the question: WHY GOD?
The issue is: we want this answer now. We want to know how the chaos and pain and grief all around us could possibly work toward good in the end. This is where faith come is. Faith is:
the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Hebrews 1:1).
This means that we trust in what we know about God as we face what we are unsure of. All of the answers that we do not have should be viewed through what God has clearly revealed. In this, God becomes the purpose and end for all we do, and the one who we continue to grasp for the answers we long for.