Answering the Why Question

Some days my mind is cloudier than others. It is relatively easy to ask big why questions of God when we see photos of Haiti or Chile. When we are closed up in our suburban, comfy, shells, it is relatively easy not to ask the why questions at all.

Then once in a while, we learn or hear about suffering and evil that is so horrendous, we recoil in physical revulsion. Combine that with a cloudy head, and it is easy for me to fall away from my own knowledge of truth and ask the same why questions.

Trying to understand why my head gets cloudy is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to remember, again, a solid answer to one of the why questions. My pastor’s answers usually clear my foggy head:

Why do little children suffer and die? We ask it with the awareness that it is happening this very moment by the hundreds, and we ask it through tears of personal experience and empathy. Here is one biblical answer: “Just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—” (Romans 5:12).

When an objection arises that it is “harsh, to bring the whole creation under the judgment of suffering and death, including little children, because of one man's sin.” My pastor’s answer is again helpful:

That is how outrageous sin against an infinitely wise and good and holy God is. We don’t measure the outrage of our suffering by how insignificant we think sin is; we measure the outrage of sin by the scope of suffering. The really amazing thing is that you and I, as sinners, are sitting here talking, when we deserve to be in hell. God is remarkably patient. And he gave his Son to die in our place so that everyone who believes may escape from this judgment and have eternal life.

(HT: Desiring God; Read the whole article.)