Well, welcome back to another episode of Struggling Well. Now, we do realize that you all don't necessarily hang on each of these and listen week by week and sometimes you skip ones and listen to other ones. But this is one of those where I hope you listen to last week's because we're going to build off of that this week as we talk about that whole thing question of why things happen to us in life and we go back not only to what we've experienced in our life, but we go back to what God says in his word because we learn from the men and women of scripture and how they walked with the Lord. And Suzi's got some examples of people who face some difficult things in scripture and how they handled those.
last week I think we left you hanging which was really on purpose sort of. because a lot of times don't you feel like God has left you hanging? You wonder where he's at? We ask that question why. And basically what we're asking is why weren't you there? Why didn't you stop the thing that was happening that was not good? Why did you let my child pass away? Why did you let the waters of a river rise to where lives were taken? And we are not going to give you answers that you're going to go, "Oh, okay. That makes sense." And most of the time in scripture, it doesn't look like God answers that question why very often. you know, Job is a favorite of ours. We go back so often. And God never tells Job why he's done what He's done. Here's an interesting thing that kind of has hit me as I've been thinking about this is we have Genesis through Revelation. God's revelation to us through his word inspired, inherent, perfect. We don't understand it all, but he's given us this whole all these words of his and of people that he's inspired to write. And we are not satisfied with what he's written. But we're then asking a question beyond it. like, "God, I want you to I don't like what's written in here because it doesn't answer my questions. I want you to answer me according to what I deem is the right answer." And I it kind of is ironic to me that he's given us the whole word of God, his whole word, and we're not satisfied with that, but we want something in addition. So, I've been thinking about that, and it brought me to some of the characters in the Old Testament and New Testament as well. But when Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were in captivity, and they went through the trials that they went through. God never gave them the heads up and said, "Hey, this is what's going to happen. Just hang in there with me and I'm going to pull you out of all those problems." Never. But we know with all of those young men, because they were young men at the time, they it all boiled down to whatever God was doing, and they were in some difficult situations. It boiled down to them saying, "We trust in you. They can take our lives. You can save us, but even if you don't, we will never lose our faith and trust in you. in the New Testament, John the Baptist was imprisoned. We know that story. He was unlawfully imprisoned, but there he was and he doesn't hear anything. He doesn't hear anything. Jesus is out and about doing ministry. He hears nothing. And finally, he sends one of his followers to say, "Are you the Messiah?" But he hears nothing. And then the next thing we know is John the Bapt aptist is beheaded. And so there are a lot of a lot of stories throughout scripture even Jesus on the cross when he says father why have you forsaken me there are questions that are asked where it seems like God is silent babe.
Yeah. No
come with me. I see you looking at me.
Is it because I'm so outstanding?
Yes.
Yes. Probably not.
No. I think it's I think So it comes down to in my mind I go all the way back to Abraham before he became Abraham when God called him out of his land he was 75 years old and God said I'm going to take you to a place just pick up and follow. He didn't have any idea where God was going. He told him he's going to make him a great nation. He had no children at that point and yet it says in Hebrews by faith Abraham obeyed God. And so what becomes the difference maker for all these situations. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they go into the fiery furnace. We're not going to bow down to you in that and but and God will deliver us or he can deliver us. But even if he doesn't in Daniel when he goes into the lion's end, like you said, I think it comes down to seeking the face of God
and trusting him. And in the 27th Psalm, David writes that psalm f full of confidence. He begins the psalm by saying, "The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? And then he goes down in verse 8 and he says, God saying, you have said, seek my face. My heart says to you, your face, O Lord, do I seek. And I think that's where David's confidence comes.
His confidence in his absence or the ability to deal with fear that would normally be there is not present because he's seeking God.
I love what it says. in the NLT version. verse 7287 says, "Hear me as I pray, oh Lord. Be merciful and answer me. My heart has heard you say, "Come and talk with me." And my heart responds, "Lord, I am coming."
Yeah. In the 14th verse of that same psalm ends this way. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord. And it's that sense that I no matter what life throws my way, no matter what the circumstances of my life may be, I am going to put them all in the direction of looking to the Lord and waiting for him.
You know, that where the rubber meets the road is we talked last week about some of the catastrophic events that occurred and I know for myself I wrestle with we'll take the latest one with the flooding in Texas and the lives that were lost and the young lives in particular. We always seem to when as a young person we mourn that differently than we do maybe someone in their 90s and I'm not sure why we do but we absolutely do because we think they had more life to live and we want God to make sense of that and I don't think there's any way to make sense. I don't know if God would come back with an answer and say well I allowed that to happen because and give us an answer. We wouldn't go oh okay now it makes sense. we have we've experienced loss and difficulty to ourselves and having God come and tell us why does not take away the sting of what has happened.
But what he does say is I am with you. And here's the thing as a believer. The difference should be that I am not without hope.
Psalm 23 speaks so deliberately to that he is my shepherd. That even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you're with me. There's the difference for us as believers. It doesn't mean that we don't grieve, that we don't wail over circumstances that happen. The last 5 years, I think you and I have wailed more than we did in our entire lives. Would that be a true statement?
Yeah.
And then what happens is in our wailing, we then shake our fist and say, "God, you are silent. Why don't you say something?" And Jimmy, you were saying something to me earlier about the 400year.
Yeah. I mean, I go get a prayer answered for a week, a month, a year, whatever, maybe my lifetime. and yet the children of Israel, God's people, endured 400 years of silence from the end of the Old Testament to the writing of Matthew in the coming of the Messiah. 400 years, no prophets, nothing recorded. And so, the belief that God had maybe abandoned them, that God had let them go, I don't know all that they were feel but and then when he came they missed it anyway
but the whole sense that you get is that God is telling this larger story that our lives fit into and I think that 14th verse of the 27th Psalm is perfect. Wait for the Lord. there are people who see e even when Abraham obeyed God and left Haran and took Sarah his wife and Lot his nephew and left. A Abraham never saw the completion of the promise that God gave to him of a great and mighty nation. But he still moved in obedience and he was willing to wait and let God do a God. It was generations later before that promise was fulfilled in a way that Abraham never saw it. So are we willing to wait?
You know, silence, we hate silence, but if I look in scripture, I see that God doesn't shy away from silence. He there are many times when we are demanding for him to speak and he doesn't. and what's interesting is for many of us as believers, we say we love him. We say we follow him but we barely speak to him. But when our back up is against the up against a wall or we see a tragedy that makes no sense to us, then we want then we're talking to him because we want answers where and I think the psalist did that too. I'm not saying it's just us. I'm I think David was an ASAP and all the sons of Kora. Is it Kora? They wanted answers. but in their questioning they come to the point of saying but wait a minute you are God and I am not and you're asking me to trust you. You will provide. You will answer according to your time and I will put my trust in that.
So, as you go through this week, as you go through what's ever happening in your life, we're not saying that you don't cry out to God with your anguish and your confusion and your tears, but at the end of the day, are you willing to wait for him to be the one who's going to act and tell the story of life? Have a great week.