Incessant asking. Continual demand for more. Pestering for that need to be met. A need which is not necessary. That’s the life of a toddler. We all know, because we used to be one – unfortunately, some of us still act that way.
My challenge for us all today is abrasive, and I’m choosing that approach intentionally. Why be soft for the sake of safety when urgency calls for a sharp message?
In these days when people protest to protect their rights, they miss the point. Sometimes suffering comes to make us stronger. Instead of crying like a toddler who didn’t get what they wanted, perhaps the better choice would be to find a higher outcome.
Sometimes suffering comes to make us stronger
My personal world is full of unanswered questions, and it seems more now than ever. Family and friends recently lost from this world. Hopes dashed on the rocks in a storm. Unmet needs, terminal disappointments, broken relationships with loved ones. You might think it would be fair for me to shout at God from the mountain, demanding to know “why?”
You deserve an answer! No, I don’t.
Who do we think we are to judge the Creator of the universe because He chooses not to answer our questions? How dare we be so arrogant and infantile, to think we deserve our toddler-like needs to be met.
Grow up. Grow faith. Sometimes the absence of an answer is the better outcome for our maturity, we just don’t always see it.
Sometimes the absence of an answer is the better outcome for our maturity
Faith does not flow from answered questions, for where is faith in that which we know? Faith is the substance (reality) of those things we cannot see, and yet believe exist. God is real and exists in everything we see. But God is not accepted by many because He chooses not to answer the question they pose in the way they prefer. Any parent that is ruled by a toddler is the lesser human.
True faith is trusting God because you accept He is God, not because He meets your needs.
You may say, “I won’t accept a God like that.” And God allows you free choice. However, the wise among us know that trusting the wrong question never leads to the best outcome. Toddlers demand a response, until they learn the parent knows better.
Yes, the world is a broken system. We broke it when we diverted our families, our community and our nation away from God’s ways. Yes, bad stuff happens, and we are oft oppressed, maligned or assaulted. Demanding answers in the midst of chaos is likened to the toddler who asks “why” and won’t budge from the floor until their need is satisfied.
Faith is giving up our right to have answers, and freely choosing to trust God in the absence of what we want. When you finally find this place, you will become confident His way is better.
Faith is giving up our right to have an
You can survive this season. Trust God, even when He doesn’t answer your questions.