WHY?

“Abba Anthony pondered the depth of the judgments of God and asked, ‘Lord, how is it that some die when they are young, while others continue on to old age? Why are some poor and some rich? Why do the wicked prosper and the just suffer?’ He heard a voice answer him, ‘Anthony, attend to yourself; these things are in the keeping of God. What you do not know, you do not need to know.' ”—from The Lives of the Desert Fathers

We’ve all asked these questions.

Sometimes we ask them out of mere curiosity. It’s not fair when bad things happen to good people. When we ponder why the theoretical Mack truck runs over the theoretical little girl crossing the street with her grandmother, the injustice makes us wonder about God’s goodness.

Sometimes we ask them because something bad has happened to us, we hurt, and there’s nobody else to blame. If my boss fires me, I can blame him. If I finally accept that my daughter’s an alcoholic, I can blame her. If I get caught taking home a boxload of office supplies from work, I can blame everybody else ‘cause everybody else does it, too.

But when something bad happens—when it just seems to fall from the sky and hits me—then I start to wonder why this is happening to me. Why have I been singled out? What sort of God does such things?

It’s one thing to wonder why babies are born with cleft palates. It’s another question entirely when MY baby is born with a cleft palate. That’s when we simmer at injustice.

We’re right to simmer. The voice inside that asks “Why would a God Who is supposed to love me allow Alzheimer’s to steal my memories?” asks a question that should be asked. It’s not wrong for us to put hard questions—gut questions—to God.

If we really want to ask the tough questions, don’t take the cheap answers.

We ask these questions because we know something’s not right—a world where a happy college girl gets raped is a world that has something fundamentally wrong with it. So it’s not enough to say “some people are rapists,” or “she shouldn’t have gone out walking alone after dark,” though both these things may be factually true. They don’t answer the soul’s cry—“Why did I get raped?”

Abba Anthony put the question before God. “Why injustice? Why pain? Why sorrow? Why death? Why, Lord?”

In a sharp response, the Lord replied, “Attend to yourself.”

Did the Lord avoid Anthony’s question? Does He avoid yours? Because it’s a question every person, smart or stupid, kind or bitter, good or bad, has asked—and not one of us, ever—has received an answer that allows us to explain it to everybody else. It remains THE unanswered question about life, though it’s asked in a million different ways.

There’s no answer that will satisfy the mind, because at its roots, it’s not an intellectual question. It’s a question not so much of the mind but of the heart. Not “why?” but “why me?” “why the one I love?”

The Voice said to Anthony, “These things are in the keeping of God. What you don’t know, you don’t need to know.” That’s the harsh Voice of the desert. But there’s the other side of those words: “What you need to know, you know already.”

To find what you seek, look inside. Ponder your life. Discover God there. Hidden in harshness is mercy; coursing through pain, is Grace. “Attend to yourself.” God waits there.