The Unanswered Why
Hindsight’s 20/20. It’s always easier to have gone through a challenging season or a confusing circumstance when you’re able to look back and see a clear correlation with the good place you’re at now coming from the hard thing you went through then. Well, what happens when that’s not the case?
Life’s full of ups and downs and hills and valleys. Our culture is bent towards the mountain top. Be happy – even when you’re not. The problem is happiness is fleeting. It can be there one moment and a breath latter it vanishes. The reality of the situation is this – valleys exist and every one of us goes through them.
Due to our culture’s dopamine addicted, happiness-focused mentality, we are trained when going through the valley to ask the question – why. Why did this happen? What’s this for? Where did I mess up to get me here? Now, there’s nothing wrong with asking these questions. Processing through experiences is an important and even mature practice.
I found myself sitting on a bench at my church’s Wednesday evening service. A lady was giving her testimony. Have you ever had this experience? It was though her story was speaking straight into my present circumstance. She said, “It’s OK to not know the why. There are times when we may never get the answer to that question.”
Scribbling some notes, I felt those words skip right past the walls and straight to my heart. The why has been what’s kept me up at night. The why has caused me to linger and tempted me towards doubt. The search for why has thrust me to comparison and to feelings of inadequacy. Hindsight has not been 20/20 for me.
As those words broke through, it was almost as if they were an invitation. Like a statement of permission. “Z, it’s OK to not know the why.” After a slow exhale, the noise in my mind began to soften. A glimmer of peace slipped in under the door and I began to relax. Friend, what I was reminded of was this, “For we live by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And “faith is being sure of what we hope for and sure of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).
The fruit of faith is assurance and hope. The fruit of my search over “why” was leading me to the exact opposite. Biblically, we’re told “you will know them by their fruit” (Matthew 7:16). This test, although written about uncovering false prophets, can also be used on a micro scale. What kind of fruit is this thought or pursuit producing in me? This, of course, requires honest reflection, but with that simple question you can quickly uncover the things that are producing life and must stay and the things that are causing death and must leave.
Is there a why that’s been left unanswered in your life? Could be over a circumstance, a relationship, a season, a hardship, the list goes on. I have two things to say. First, the Bible gives us no assurance that we will either see or receive answers to why things happen in our life. Secondly, we are charged Biblically to walk out of a deeper way. A way that “sees” past our sight, a way that walks out of a deeply convicted sense of belief and trust and faith that God is still good. He loves you, friend. And He is bigger than your unanswered whys.
