You don’t know what you don’t know. And you will never know exactly how another person feels or the depth of their personal suffering. I’ve spent almost 40 years of my life as a pastor and counselor. During those years I’ve empathetically listened as people have poured out their hearts and told me their stories. Some are horrific, catastrophic, or tragic beyond belief. All are filled with emotions from violent anger to shocked bewilderment. While the people and stories are all unique, the questions articulated remain very similar and all are a variation of what I’ve been calling life’s most persistent question, “Why?”
“God wants to build character in our lives,” I once mused to a young father with three children who was mourning the loss of his wife from cancer.
“I don’t need any more character,” he shouted at me. “I need my wife back!”
Ouch! His explosion reminded me of the then-recent eruption of Mt. St. Helens (pictured above almost 35 years after the explosion). I was a young pastor and just trying to make sense myself out of his tragic circumstances. Parroting what I truly believed, but without any comprehension of his own incredible grief, my words, that were intended to soothe and answer, simply applied salt to his wounded heart. I’ve learned a few things about suffering myself since then and would never make such a statement under similar circumstances today.
Based upon many such encounters with grieving souls, I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 most persistent questions. Much has been written about them, and I seriously doubt what I might say will shed any additional light on the topic. But by their very nature, they persistently remain the questions that cross generational, societal, and geographical boundaries. They are universal questions, asked by all people in all places at all times. And in one way or another, they are also questions considered by the ancients and recorded in the pages of the Bible.
While there are personalized versions of every one of these, the general questions are universal. And when asked in a real-life situation, every one of them are typically accompanied by a pretext. For example, “If God is all powerful, why doesn’t God prevent tragedy?” or “God answers prayers for other people, why doesn’t God answer my prayers? Here are my top 10:
10. Why would a loving God send someone to hell?
9. Why doesn’t God prevent corrupt leaders from coming into power?
8. Why doesn’t God put an end to all suffering?
7. Why does God allow innocent children to be victimized and harmed?
6. Why doesn’t God heal everyone who asks?
5. Why doesn’t God prevent tragedy?
4. Why does God allow evil?
3. Why doesn’t God answer my prayers?
2. Why do evil people prosper?
1. Why do the righteous suffer?
Before you quickly attempt to provide pat answers to these questions, consider the fact that these questions are consistently universal and ubiquitous—they appear everywhere at all times. If our philosophical and theological answers were adequate to explain the human condition on a level beyond the intellect, wouldn’t people stop asking them, and have stopped doing so years ago?
And please remember that they are posed in the midst of great turmoil of soul and spirit, typically generated by circumstances that have destroyed the fabric of human decency and order. They are not questions that inquire or call for a philosophical or even theological dialogue, although that sometimes occurs and may be profitable. No, these questions are more like a rhetorical shotgun blast, an interrogation generated by an internal explosion of angst and turmoil of the soul—triggered by external circumstances beyond our control.
These are questions that at the same time demand an answer, while not really expecting any single answer to sufficiently explain the catastrophe of a broken life and heart. So, how do we respond? How should we respond? And what do you think about the questions themselves? Are there other questions you would add to the top 10? I’d love to hear what you think, and I’ll share my thoughts in a later post. I will tell you this, Mt. St. Helens is proof that time may bring beauty out of the most explosive of circumstances. It takes time, but time alone does not heal all wounds. Ultimately, only Jesus does that.
Thank you so much for your articles, Don. I greatly appreciate how you express your thoughts. Thank you also for inviting responses on this article. I do have some thoughts on how I would respond to someone asking these questions. I apologize for the length, but as you mention in your article, there are no pat answers. My response is actually a brief overview of where I would like to lead a conversation and would be presented more as questions to the person experiencing this turmoil so they can discover the path jesus wants them to walk for themselves rather than me just giving voice to my opinions.
As for additional questions, I thought of two I have heard many times that could be added to your list:
– Why is God silent when I need to hear Him the most?
– How can ‘this’ possibly work for my good?
To respond to someone asking questions such as these, I believe to start off simply acknowledging their questions and the emotions that initiate them does a greater service to the person asking the questions. Brushing the questions aside with a pat answer, demeans the question and the questioner. It’s okay to ask questions because God wants us to be real with Him. He knows how we’re feeling and to try to cover that with platitudes or just pushing it back into the recesses of our mind, fools no one and settles nothing. They need to be opened to the light God has and wants to shed on every dark corner of our hearts. He’s got big enough shoulders to handle the questions and the emotions; the anger, bitterness, confusion, and brokenness.
Many people have gone through what some have called the ‘dark night of the soul’ where the very foundations of their faith are shaken. While going through this time, there are several things I would suggest to the person experiencing this.
– keep going back to Jesus to let him know your questions and how you’re feeling, because persistence will be rewarded with response although sometimes it isn’t the response we want to hear and takes longer than we think we can hang on to our suddenly fragile faith.
– keep reminding yourself that you are not the only one that has had to wait for a response. Moses had to wait decades to start his ministry, Abraham never saw the answer to the promise God made to him about having many children, Sarah was well past child bearing age when she had her son, and many other examples of answers and promises delivered on Gods timing. Continuing to do what we know is right and holding on to our faith is rewarded in the end.
– hold on to the things you know to be true. This list can vary from person to person. Since the foundations of faith are being shaken during this time, there will be certain truths that some may question and others won’t. Hold on to the things you can and go to God to see how he will rebuild your faith in the areas you’re questioning.
– sometimes what we experience is related to a sin he wants to remove from our lives so we can walk more freely. Ask Jesus if there is sin in your life and to show you what he wants you to address and work on getting rid of. Keep asking so you can handle things if you fall into a trap as you walk through this time. This also gives you comfort knowing you aren’t being disciplined, but are being taken through a valley or dark night.
This response is obviously addressed to a someone who has a relationship with Jesus The approach with someone who hasn’t met Jesus yet, would definitely be different.