A good friend of mine shared this with me, she heard it in a message. Seek to be healed, not answered. I won’t pretend I thought of it. It was so powerful and has been on my mind for over a year now so let’s explore. Things happen, don’t they? We tend to have certain ideals of how our life will go. We never anticipate a problem or a tough season as they say. Inevitably they still come.
It was the summer of 2009, we were in Kentucky visiting for a family wedding. The family thought it would be a great idea to visit Six Flags during some downtime. The day was going along beautifully until it wasn’t. The guys headed out early to do guy things and the women stayed back with the kids. Sounds about right. I remember sitting on a bench while the others were on a roller coaster (roller coasters are not my thing). I looked up at the sky and there were very dark, ominous clouds that seemed to be headed our way. Now I’m from Arizona, specifically Phoenix, when we see a dark cloud in the sky there’s a 10% chance it might greet us sometime in the next decade. That’s a funny way of saying, we don’t get much weather in the AZ. Anyway, I say to the gal sitting next to me, I think we should start making our way back to the hotel after this ride, those clouds look like rain. She agreed. Within 10 minutes we found ourselves in torrential downpour, tornado sirens going off, and people running like crazy being scooped up into any available shelter areas. It was quite a funny scene to see these Arizona girls trying to navigate this crazy weather. All and all we made it out of the storm and back to the hotel. Soaking wet but a-ok.
I share that story because that’s what it can feel like when a problem hits us. One minute we are sitting on a bench in Six Flags enjoying a beautiful Kentucky day and the next we are in the storm of our lives. Storms always seem to hit quickly and unexpectedly. After the storm has calmed we are left with just one question, why God, why?
We often ask God for the why in the storms of our lives. To my knowledge, he never answers that question. I like what Joyce Meyer says “We live life forwards, but we understand it backwards”. Ain’t that the truth! God doesn’t tell us the why for the things that happen, simply because, he doesn’t have to. Our loving him, trusting him, and following him should never be predicated on his answer to our questions. Isaiah 55:8 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.”
We love him because he is God. We trust him because he is God. We choose to follow him because he is God. We know his character. We know that God loves us and that his plans for us are good, we know this because his word tells us so.
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
He has the answer to our why because he is all-knowing, but he also knows that the answer is not what we need. What good does the answer do us now? It’s not going to change the fact that we went through the storm. The answer is not going to take away the damage the storm did to us. We probably wouldn’t like the answer anyway, it’s not going to make us feel better.
We don’t need the answer, we need healing. And that he is willing to provide, at all times.
Job is probably the first person in the bible that we think about when we talk about storms. You could say that Job went through the storm of all storms. We go through storms, but I don’t think any of us have gone through such a storm as Job. His entire life was taken from him. When Job is preached about we often hear how Job never cursed God, he always stayed firm in his belief. This is true and shows us how important it is to remain planted on the rock of Jesus Christ even amid our greatest trials. Be encouraged in that. While Job did not curse God, he did ask him why, he didn’t understand why all this was happening to him. God’s reply to Job was simple, who are you to question me? Read it, God gives him a good ol’ rebuke! After some back-forth with God, which in my mind just shows how gracious and merciful God is, Job finally repents before God for questioning his authority. He never gets his answer on why he went through the storm he did. Job realized that he was wrong to even ask such things. After this we read that God does what a loving father does, he heals him, he restores him, he makes his latter greater than his former. He redeems all that was lost and then some. Let’s also add this log on the fire, Job went through his storm because of all he was doing right, not because of what he was doing wrong.
It’s like when a baby falls and scrapes their knee. The Mama can’t take away the fact that the scrape is there, but she can clean it up and make it feel better. That’s what God does. For reasons we can’t understand he doesn’t take away the storm, but he can protect us in it, he can heal us from it, and he can redeem all that was lost.
We don’t need to be answered, we need to be healed. Jeremiah 17:14 “Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved. For you are the one I praise.”
God is our healer. I know it’s hard, we just want to know why. We just want to know what if. We want to replay all the different scenarios in our heads over and over again. But that won’t do anything for us. All that does is steal our now, steal our peace, steal the opportunity for God to come in and make it better. Can we move past wanting to be answered and seek to be healed?
Love you mucho! – PB
Catch the video blog on Youtube where Pastor Brittany shares about her journey with this topic.
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