The Reason Why

     When bad things happen to us, we seek desperately to understand why in the, probably futile, hope that knowing the reason will make the trial easier to bear. I call this a rush to judgment. The phrase rush to judgment usually refers to finding someone guilty before any evidence has been produced. Legally and morally this is wrong, but the media are not burdened by such minutiae. In American culture we frequently have the opposite also, a rush to acquit, where some individuals are quick to publicly forgive a criminal whose offense was not against them.  Being soft hearted is not illegal, but the only ones entitled to forgive a school shooter, for instance, are those directly affected by their crime. But I use the term rush to judgment to mean Christians who start proclaiming the reason for their suffering when it has barely begun.
    Tracy had a grade school friend whose family had moved from Denver to Kalispell where the father took over an insurance agency.  Months later the expected clients had not materialized and the home they had bought at the peak of the housing market was worth less than they paid for it.  I talked to the mother shortly after they realized they would need to return to Colorado and she had already come up with THE REASON this trial was happening.  Such rush to judgment is our nature but it is like thinking you are seeing from the top of the mountain when you have barely begun the hike.
     Job had plenty of reasons to complain about his suffering and friends who rushed to judgement with their own faulty theology, but it was still not a good idea to demand that God explain himself.  It's too bad Job couldn't read the prologue to his own book because that is where the plot is explained.  God did not explain his reasons to Job. What He did explain was why Job had no right to ask. God is pretty understanding about our weaknesses, but one of those is that we probably couldn't comprehend THE REASON if He gave it to us. And probably there are many REASONS because God is not in the business of wasting things--especially our suffering.
    I can now look back on things that happened to me years ago and find some purpose in them. For instance, my mom's schizophrenic delusions were one of the things God used to get me out of the Mormon church so I could hear the gospel, but there were a thousand other things he used to bring me to the point of accepting Christ.  I have as much understanding of what God is doing in my life as an ant on a chessboard understands chess.  I have been a Christian long enough to know we may never know the reason for our suffering.  Besides, I have never once demanded an explanation for why God is blessing me. Ours is not to reason why, and probably, we should not try.