I am nothing–how could I ever find the answers? I lay my hand upon my mouth in silence. I have said too much already. —Job 40:4–5
We can ask God why anytime we want to. But I don’t know whether we will really be satisfied with His answers.
If God came down to you on a shining cloud and explained His purposes to you, would it really make it any better? I don’t know that it would. As far as we know, Job never was given the “why” of all the tragedies that befell him. But He was given an incredible revelation of God’s wisdom and power.
When Jesus was in great agony, dying on the cross for our sins, and He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He did ask why. But notice that He prefaced it with, “My God, My God.” It wasn’t an accusation against the Father. Jesus was merely stating the reality of what was taking place in those awful hours, as all of the sin of the world was being placed upon Him who had known no sin. And as the Father turned His holy face away, the Son cried out, “Why have You forsaken Me?” (see Matthew 27:46).
The fact is, Jesus was forsaken that I might be forgiven. But even in His great cry of grief and loneliness over His separation from the Father, as He bore the sins of the world for all time, Jesus still said, “My God, My God. . . .” There was complete trust in the Lord.
You might say, “Well, I have a lot of questions for God. When I get to heaven I’m going to ask Him some things. In fact, I’ve got a list.”
You just keep that list with you. Take it with you everywhere you go, and then if you die unexpectedly, you’ll have it handy to pull out and ask God when you stand before Him.
Somehow, I don’t think that is the way it will be. I suggest to you that when you arrive in heaven, when you see your Creator, your God, your Savior in all His blazing glory, you’ll forget all about your little list of questions. One commentator wrote, “I had a million questions to ask God, but when I met Him, they all fled my mind, and it didn’t seem to matter.”
Devotional is an excerpt from Every Day with Jesus by Greg Laurie, 2013
