Thursday, April 7, 2011

Is It Okay To Question God?




If God were sitting right beside you now, on the couch, the bed, in a chair or in the kitchen on a bar stool watching you cook, what would you talk to Him about?

Would you ask Him questions about world peace and if or when it will come? How about the Japan earthquake and tsunami?

Maybe you'd ask Him why questions. Why did she die? Why did my marriage end? Why can't I find a job? Why do I feel so lonely? Why are my kids so far from you when I raised them in church? Why can't I have children?

Maybe you'd ask how questions. How did you make this body that works so perfectly in tune? How is it the ocean waves come to shore then carry me back out into the water? How can I go on when my world is falling apart? How can You stand by and watch innocent children go hungry?

Who questions. Who will I marry? Who will save me from myself? Who am I? Who are You?

Conversation with the Father can be full of difficult questions or it can be easy talking about everyday life. It's whatever you need it to be. He is there to listen and build a relationship with you.

Is it ok to ask the hard questions? Sure, He knows our questions before we ask them. Is it alright to be angry at life and at God when things don't turn out the way we want them to? He knows that too. Just tell Him how you feel, get it out in the open. It's not like we can hide it from Him.

When my father died in 1999 I had never lost anyone that close to me before. My heart was broke in half and it literally hurt. I did not know how to express the hurt, pain and anger I felt. One night before the funeral I went to daddy's house alone and sat down with a pad of paper and a pen. My thoughts and feelings flowed as I wrote everything I felt. Everything! I told God how I felt He betrayed me by taking my father, how angry I was, how I wasn't sure how I would go on, that I didn't know how to do this thing called "living" without my precious hero. When I was done, I was done. It was over, the anger subsided and I had resolved many of the issues that troubled me. As I read the words I wrote I saw that I began to accept his death a little more as I expressed myself on paper. I needed to tell my heavenly Father what was going on in my heart and mind to be able to move to the next step. He listened, He comforted and He loved me that night. Don't misunderstand me, grief is a long process for some of us and it was for me but that night was the first step for me.

Tell God whatever you need to tell Him, ask all the questions you want, He will never turn His back on you. He is faithful, He is love and He understands.

2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.