A Few Questions

(Today's post is a little long -- stay with me if you can.)

I think I was a junior in college when I returned to my roots and started listening to country music again. It just wasn’t cool when Iwas in high school in the seventies. Back then, we were listening to brand newrock music that since has come to be described as “classic.” Talk about feelingold. When I was a junior in college, however, my parent’s college fund ran out,but they did let me borrow a 1972 Ford Pinto (yes, the exploding kind), so I could live and work off campus. The Pinto only had an AM radio, so I foundmyself listening to WSM, none other than the flagship station of the Grand Ol’ Opry. Even todaywhen I’m in the Nashville area, I nostalgically tune in.

Perhaps this helps explain why, since I got access to Worldspace Satellite Radio a few months ago here in Togo, I’ve spent hours listening to their “UpCountry” channel. Sometimes I’m embarrassed by the worldly or sexual content of the songs, but more often I’m impressed by the human and spiritual side of the music. Yesterday, I heard what was to me a new song, though it may have been out for a while in the States, sung by Clay Walker.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the lyrics, but the song begins by enumerating several modern-day dilemmas concerning the existence of evil in the world which the composer can’t understand, but then, taking a cue from chapters 38 to 42 of the book of Job, the composer confesses that he or she wasn’t there when God hung the stars, filled the stars, etc. In other words, humans can’t answer all of God’s questions, so we are in no position to demand that he answer all of ours. Still, the composer dares to ask God “A Few Questions” – hence the title of the song and the album.

I looked for more information on the song on Walker’s website, and found this quote from him,

“I was taught as a kid that you don’t question God, but this is written so well it’s pardonable.”

Somewhere along the line Walker’s teachers, decided that it was wrong to question God. I don’t know where they got that idea, but it wasn’t from the Bible. Though God never answers Job’s questions, he doesn’t condemn him for questioning. In fact, God was angry with Job’s friends who refused to question him, “because you have not spoken of me what is right, as myservant Job has” (Job 42:7, NIV).

And Job isn’t the only one to question God in Scripture.

Abraham questioned God’s decision to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (he lost), but Moses managed to talk God out of wiping out the children of Israel (Gen. 18:16-19:29; Exodus 32:9-14). The Psalms are full of people questioning God, and God chose to keep those questions in the Bible. A quick search revealed thirty-one occurrences of the word “Why” in the English text of the NIV ofPsalms, including these:

• "Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?” (10:1)
  
• “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (22:1)
  
• “Why have you forgotten me?” (42:9)
• “Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep? Arouse yourself!”(44:23)
• “Why do the nations say, ‘Where is their God?’” (115:2)
  

Even in the book of the Apocalypse, we find the martyrsunder the throne, in the very presence of God, questioning him, asking, “How long, Sovereign Lord?” (Rev. 6:10)

Obviously, God is not as disturbed by our questions as we might think. In fact, he invites us to ask. Obviously, we can go too far. We can question God, but we dare not accuse him. We dare not put "God in the Dock" (C.S. Lewis). Like Job, we do not have all the facts and we cannot expect to understand all of the cosmic forces involved in our struggles.But still, we can ask. Often times he calls us to wait.

He seldom answers quickly or in the way we expect to hear from him. He calls us to trust. He calls us to faith, but he allows us to doubt, to question, and to wait -- to wait for that day when either all of our questions will be immediately answered, or they just won't seem so pressing anymore. After all, we'll have forever.