Have you ever wondered why some things happen? "How can a loving God allow this to happen?," people will say. There is no other unanswered question that I have heard people ask more than this. We all often don't understand things, and whether we admit it or not, sometimes we wonder what God was thinking, if He really is in control, and if He really did have any right to do what He did. As I've seen this question come up and out of many people's mouths this past month or so I've had an ever increasing desire to be able to give these people an answer. And wouldn't you know that whenever you seek for something, and your motives are pure, you will find that which you seek. God has shown me something. So let's dig in, shall we?

The first scripture I want to look at is Proverbs 20:24
"The Lord directs our steps,
so why try to understand everything along the way?"
What this is saying is that if we truly believe that God is directing our steps, that He is in control of our lives and everything in them, then why do we get frustrated when we don't understand everything? After all, we know that God works all things out for the better of those who love Him (Romans 8:28), and that He has plans to give us a hope and a future - to prosper us, not to harm us (Jeremiah 29:11). If God is in control of everything in our lives, then there is no reason to worry because He only has good things in store for us. Psalm 84:11 says: "For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right." You may be saying "well that's all fine and dandy, but I don't always do what is right - so what if God is withholding good things from me because I don't do what is right?" If so, take a look at Romans 3:24 which says "God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins." So simply put, if you are saved (accepted Jesus Christ as your saviour), then God declares that you are righteous. This means that He will withhold NO good thing from you! So whatever may be going on, know that ultimately it is for the better - for your better! Sometimes it may not look that way by our understanding, but from God's standpoint it is.

I think a lot of people can relate to Job. Not because we have had everything in our lives that God has blessed us with taken away, but because we don't always understand why and we have a desire to understand. Throughout the book Job questions God. Why did He let this happen? Why did He do this to me? Yet look at what Job says, after the Lord had responded to him.
"Then Job replied to the Lord:

'I know that You can do anything,
and no one can stop You.
You asked, 'Who is this that questions My wisdom with such ignorance?'
It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about,
things far too wonderful for me.'" [Job 42:1-3]
The Hebrew word for wonderful here is a verb that means to do something extraordinary or difficult. Job was saying that the answers to his questions are far to complex and difficult for him to ever fully understand. Let me illustrate it this way. When I was younger and I had just watched the Back To The Future trilogy I began to wonder about time travel and how changing the slightest event changes history completely. Take this illustration for example: You just mowed the lawn and as you were walking inside you noticed one piece of grass sticking up higher than the rest - a piece you missed. Because you noticed this one blade of grass and thought about it, every other thought you will ever have has now been shifted and changed. Out of your thought life comes your actions in the world around you, which in turn effects the people around you, which in turn effects the people and world around them. So it's safe to say that this one blade of grass can completely change the course of history. If one blade of grass is so important, and the story behind it's purpose so complex, you can only begin to imagine how much purpose each and everyone of us has - and how each event in our lives has such a complex meaning behind it that it gets to the point where we humanly can't understand it all.

I was recently sharing this with a group of people and afterward a woman asked me if I thought it was wrong to ask God why. I don't believe there is anything wrong with wanting revelation (or an understanding) on a subject. So there is nothing wrong with asking God why. But what we need to keep in mind is that ultimately He is taking care of us and all of our needs will be met. So we just need to learn to let go sometimes. We aren't the ones running the show here, we don't have say over what happens. We need to give up the idea of us having the control and know that it's in better hands.