We all have to face this decision in life at some point.
"Why Lord? I cried out in the privacy of my thoughts. ….Why?
God, it seemed, had no answers for me. I railed against Him to no avail. I pummeled Him with my demands for an explanation, an excuse, a justification. He only gave me His silence.
I thought of King David and the many disappointments he had suffered. He too had put God to the question. Eli, Eli, lamah azavtani? My God, My God, why have You forsaken me? I hurled David’s question at God hoping that He would honor His beloved king where He had chosen to ignore me. And then I went still.
I remembered that in the Hebrew Scriptures you sometimes asked a question not because you expected a literal answer, but because a question was another way to express your feelings. King David had asked God why, but he had never intended to take Him to task with that question. He was not asking the Lord to explain Himself. He was merely pouring his heart out to God. He was telling his Lord that he felt abandoned.
I became mindful of how differently I had addressed the Lord. I had asked my whys of Him for years, expecting an explanation that would satisfy me. I had put Him on trial for what I perceived to be His insufficiency—His failure—and refused to surrender my heart to Him unless He would answer me. Unless He would give me a satisfactory explanation of His ways. How different was my heart from David’s.
It occurred to me that the Lord must have cherished David’s simple lamah. That was the cry of a child, who not understanding, still clung to his father. My why, on the other hand, was an indictment. It was a finger pointing at God. It held no trust.
In those moments of inward examination, with three other people and a sick dog in the same room with me, I felt myself completely alone before God. And I saw the state of my soul for the first time. I saw how arrogant I had been to judge Him. To reject Him.
I was faced in that moment with a decision. Surrounded with reminders of the disappointments of my life…, would I turn to God as a trusting child instead of a demanding judge? Would I lay down my accusations and exchange them for the intimacy of a weeping infant’s arms who clung about her Father’s neck? A child, who, not understanding why her Father took away her favorite prize, still turned to Him for comfort?
Would I exchange my why for David’s why?
It occurred to me that even if God wished to give me an accounting of Himself, His explanation would make as much sense to me as Bardia’s elucidation of pruning would make to the vine. I simply could not comprehend a God who was so far above me.
But, like David, I could have His comfort. I could have His love. I could have His peace. I could have all this without understanding.
This was the choice before me then: an unreasoning surrender that paved the way to love, or a stubborn distance from God until He justified Himself to me. Until He chose to run the world my way.
I was so tired of battling God. It had availed me nothing but bitterness. He had allowed me to wander far, to have my own way, to follow my own will. To taste the sour fruit of running my own life. I had had enough. I wanted David’s heart. I had started that night with sharp accusations against my Lord; I ended it with the desire to love Him. I chose to give my life back to God on His terms, not mine."
