On Asking God Why

O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! even cry out unto thee of violence, and thou wilt not save! HABAKKUK 1:2

Every Christian who suffers asks the question sooner or later. Why this? Why me? Why now? Why did He not prevent it? Elisabeth Elliot had more reason than most to ask it, and she did not pretend otherwise. In 1989 she published a collection of short essays under the title On Asking God Why, and the book, together with much else she wrote, sets out how she came to think about the question. Her answer was not that the question is forbidden. It was that the answer, when it comes, is usually not an explanation but a Person.

The question is allowed

She began, in substance, by defending the question. Scripture is full of it. Job asks why he was ever born. The psalmists ask why God has forsaken them, why the wicked prosper, why He hides His face. Habakkuk asks why God makes him look upon injustice. And on the cross the Lord Jesus Himself cried out, in the words of the twenty-second Psalm, asking why His God had forsaken Him. A faith that cannot ask why is not stronger than a faith that can. It is only less honest.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? MATTHEW 27:46

But she drew a distinction between two ways of asking. There is the why of a child who trusts his father and wants to understand, and there is the why of a rebel who demands that God justify Himself before he will obey. The first is a prayer. The second is an accusation. The same words can carry either, and the difference lies in the heart.

Job’s answer

The book of Job was central to her thinking here, as it has been for many who suffer. Job asks why, at length and with great bitterness. His friends offer answers, all of them neat and most of them wrong. When God at last speaks, He does not explain the wager in heaven or the reasons for Job’s losses. He asks Job questions instead — about the foundations of the earth, the storehouses of the snow, the wild goat and the war horse — and in the asking He shows Job Himself. Job is not given an explanation. He is given God. And he is satisfied.

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. JOB 38:4

I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. JOB 42:5

That, for her, was the pattern. God does not owe us explanations, and He seldom gives them. What He gives is Himself — His presence, His character, His promises — and that turns out to be enough, in a way that an explanation would never be. An explanation, even if we could understand it, would not hold us up in the dark. A Father’s hand will.

The secret things

She drew comfort from the verse in Deuteronomy which divides what God has kept from what He has given. The secret things belong to the Lord. The revealed things belong to us, so that we may do them. Much of the agony of asking why comes from demanding the secret things. Much of the peace that follows comes from turning to the revealed things — what God has plainly said, and what He has plainly asked us to do next.

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. DEUTERONOMY 29:29

This is where her teaching on suffering and her teaching on duty meet. When the question has no answer, the believer is not left with nothing. He is left with the next thing God has given him to do, and with the promise that God is working all things together for good. That promise does not say that all things are good. It says that God is at work in them for the good of those who love Him, which is a different and greater thing.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ROMANS 8:28

Hereafter

She also held, with the whole Christian tradition, that some answers are only postponed. When the Lord washed His disciples’ feet and Peter protested, Jesus told him that he did not understand now but would understand afterwards. There are things we will see only from the other side. That is not an evasion. It is a promise that the story is not yet finished, and that the Author knows how it ends.

Jesus answered and said unto him, What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter. JOHN 13:7

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! ROMANS 11:33

Weighing it

This teaching is faithful to Scripture, and especially to Job, and it has helped many through the darkest times of their lives. Two cautions are worth noting.

The first is that it can be misused by comforters. To tell a grieving person that God does not owe them an explanation is true; to tell them so too quickly is cruel. Job’s friends were wrong not only in their theology but in their timing and their tone. The Lord wept at the grave of Lazarus before He raised him. The right response to someone asking why is usually to weep with them first, and to speak of God’s sovereignty later, if at all.

Jesus wept. JOHN 11:35

The second is that her answer — that God gives Himself rather than reasons — is an answer for faith, not a proof for the sceptic. It satisfied Job because Job already knew whom he was dealing with. For the believer that is enough. For the unbeliever, the place to begin is not with the why of suffering but with the cross, where God Himself entered our suffering and answered the deepest why of all.

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation. HABAKKUK 3:17–18

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. What is the why you have been asking God? Write it down honestly.

2. Examine how you have been asking it — as a child seeking to understand, or as one demanding that God justify Himself.

3. Read Job 38–42 in one sitting. Notice what God says, and what He does not say.

4. Separate the secret things from the revealed things in your situation. What has God plainly asked you to do next? Do it.

5. When someone near you asks why, weep with them before you speak. Pray for the grace to know when to be silent.

A PRAYER

Lord, You heard Job’s questions and Habakkuk’s complaint, and You heard Your own Son cry out on the cross. Hear mine.

I do not understand what You are doing. I ask You why, and I ask as Your child.

If You do not give me reasons, give me Yourself. Let me hear of You no longer by the hearing of the ear, but see You.

Keep the secret things, and help me to do the revealed ones. And though the fig tree does not blossom, let me rejoice in You. Amen.