I read some crazy questions in a magazine the other day...
Hi, I'm Joni Eareckson Tada and I was flipping through a magazine the other day and saw this really funny list of questions... maybe you saw it in the same magazine. So here it is, think about this, here are the questions: "Why are there flotation devices under airplane seats instead of parachutes? (You know, I've always wondered that. We always think of parachutes when we are up in the air, right?) Why do they put Braille dots on the keypad of the drive-up ATM? (That’s a good one!) Why do we drive on parkways yet park on driveways? (I love that.) And next, why, when you transport something by car, is it called a shipment, but when you transport something by ship it’s called cargo? Why do they have interstate highways in Hawaii? Finally, why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds?" (That's a very good question, as far as I’m concerned.)
These questions do underscore that sometimes some questions really aren't worth asking. After all, they don't have straight answers. But some questions are worth asking: questions about your suffering and your hardships. Yet even these important questions don't often have straight answers, either; when I was first injured and facing the rest of my life in a wheelchair, the question "why" was the first thing that popped up in my head every morning. I just had to understand, I just had to get inside God's head; I had to know before I would allow myself to trust him.
It was like I had all these puzzle pieces, all mixed up (and with a whole bunch of puzzle pieces that were missing); and I could put it together and "almost" figure it out, but only so far. It was so frustrating! But now many years later, looking back, I'm not sure I would have understood, let alone been satisfied, had God put those puzzle pieces together for me -- I wouldn't have been satisfied if He had given me answers. It would have been like pouring million-gallon sized truths into my one-ounce pea brain.
Getting the straight answers to larger-than-life questions (especially about your hardship and suffering) does not increase your faith. The only way to increase faith, according to Romans 10, is by reading or listening to the Word of God. When it comes to questions about why God allowed that bad medical report, or that cancer to recur, or that heart attack that forever changed your life... when it comes to those kinds of questions, the Word of God tells us to walk by faith and not by sight. Having faith in God is where we find rest, not in locating the answers we couldn't bear to hear anyway, even if they were given to us. You’re not going to find rest in that. Wisdom is not the ability to see things from God's point of view -- someone once aptly said that wisdom is the ability to trust God even when (and especially when) you can't see things from his point of view.
Don't think answers will satisfy your need to know because they won't, but faith will, for faith assures you that Jesus is the only one who holds all the answers. So ask him to help you to bring the puzzle pieces all together and lay them at his feet for the burdens they are. And my prayer for you is today that you should leave his presence with a truckload of faith... faith to replace the doubts... faith to fill in the pieces. And rejoice alongside of me (in this wheelchair with still a whole lot of questions); please rejoice with me that some day (oh, my goodness, I can’t wait) someday Jesus will pour out before us those million-gallon truths. It's when we'll finally have all the straight answers. But until then, join me in walking (or should I say wheeling) by faith and not by sight.
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