Lesson #11 Ask God Your Hardest Questions

One thing I have learned that has set me free in many ways, is that I can and ought to take my hardest questions to the King.  Some might suggest we should not question God.  Some might think it is disobedient to ask difficult, messy, embarrassing, impossible questions of the One who rules the world. But I say, this is precisely the reason we MUST ask Him those questions.  Who else on earth is going to be able to answer you?

If the Bible tells us that it is all a bit of a blur, that no one can really see things clearly (for now we see things in a mirror dimly; now we know in part - 1 Corinthians 12:13)  and the Bible tells us that humans can't really know the reasons why things happen because we can't think like God (As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your and my thoughts higher than your thoughts, says the Lord- Isaiah 55:9) then why do we think we can go to our pastors, our friends, and our family to get answers to our toughest questions?

They don't know any more than we know!  We all have blurred vision.  So, what do we do with our questions?  Stuff them down so deep they rarely surface?  Get really busy with something to avoid noticing they have surfaced?  Berate ourselves for thinking such thoughts?

No, we gotta ask the questions!   Don't you ever wonder?  Why did that child die?  What makes sense that a great daddy is taken from a family too soon?  Where is the mercy in a chronic illness?  How come a woman who desperately wants a child is infertile? Why her? Why him?  Why me?  Why not me?

I have had my share of questions over the years.  One of them centered around a prayer for healing that was answered with death, instead.  Another tough question focused on a hard life where the woman never seemed to have had the opportunity to dance, and what kind of life is it where you never dance? Another big question of mine has to do with a great dad who got cancer and depression and left this world never having much good happen between the diagnosis and the grave.

Where can you go with those questions?  Get really busy and stay really busy and ride the train called "Avoidance" as long as it is on the tracks.  If it stops, get on the next train named, "Distraction"  It'll drive you no where - but you'll get there fast!

How about we stop.  We get off the crazy train.  We sit.  We still our souls.  We let the questions resurface.  And we ask God.  And keep asking until we find some sort of satisfaction.  We may not get the answers, but I know we get peace.  The peace that surpasses all understanding.  The peace that doesn't make sense amid the questions.  You gotta keep asking!  And you gotta sit still long enough to hear His answers.  Be still and know that He is God- Psalm 46:10.

I know that it is absolutely OK to ask God the impossible questions.  How do I know this?  Because Jesus asked God a really hard question and if Jesus can do it, so can we!  As He hung on the cross, tortured, and in anguish, He asked it.  The really hard question!  "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Why have you left me all alone?  WHERE ARE YOU GOD?

Have you ever asked that?  Good for you!  Just be sure you don't run off before He has time to speak to your heart and your soul.  Those things take time.  And you have to get off the train before you'll hear Him.

Lesson #10 Some Pain is Silent, Almost Invisible...

It has been a few weeks, maybe even a month since I last wrote.  Not for lack of lessons from Hurricane Hilo.  It just seems that this lesson has been simmering for a while and it wasn't quite 'right' for the sharing.  Most likely it was just me thinking that...

This lesson is from the silent, invisible part of the Hurricane- not the Eric Reinert part but the Holly Reinert part.  Holly has given me full permission to share her story- but up until I had permission, it was  hidden from the public eye.  As it should be.

All the while I was in Hawaii (and before I got there and after, too) Holly was suffering from major depression.  She was trying to deal with it on her own.  Then trying some medication.  Then trying no medication.  Then convincing herself it was not real.  All in a small, isolated, dark corner of the world.  She left for a job in Nebraska in August- without saying good-bye.  In the days before I flew out to be with Eric in Hawaii, I was honestly more concerned with Holly's well-being than Eric's.

With Eric's ordeal, I cried out to the entire world through emails, Facebook, and Caring Bridge.  I had a voice and I used it to ask for prayers and to release the pain and stress of the situation.  With Holly, I had no such platform.  While the world prayed for Eric's recovery, specific prayer by specific prayer, only a handful of people even knew of Holly's illness and the need for the same level of prayer.  How could I ask the world to pray for Holly- she was not even speaking to me!

But people prayed.  And it made all the difference.  I want to tell you this in case you think that you have to have a huge army of prayer warriors in order to get the King to pay attention.  Not the case.  Although I know that a large army of pray-ers stormed the gates of Heaven on Eric's behalf, I also know that the earnest prayers of a handful of faithful carried the same weight in God's eyes for Holly.

I tell you this to encourage you.  You do not have to share your story across the airwaves and cyberspace to find your answers.  Maybe yours is a personal, silent, almost invisible storm- raging inside, rather than outside.  Maybe there is no desire, like Holly, to broadcast your needs to every man and their uncle.  Maybe you want to, but you simply can't.  I am not so sure Holly did not want the same outcry for her pain relief as Eric.  It was just different.

My way of handling Eric's ordeal was not better or worse than the way I handled Holly's - it was simply different.  God honors our faithfulness, and our authenticity-- getting real with God might mean shouting from the rooftop.  It might also mean closing the prayer closet and seeking an appointment with the King behind locked doors.

The point is this:  whatever pain you are in (well known, highly-visible, and public or quiet, silent, almost invisible to the outside world) the answer is GET TO GOD!  Get real.  Ask the tough questions, seek His reply, wait until you have a satisfying answer-- otherwise keep asking!

For both Eric and Holly- God intervened in a mighty powerful way!  His timing was perfect and though He seemed long in His answers...with some still coming, He has always been right on time.

One of the sweetest things I heard from a friend after Hawaii went like this:  She came up to me and said, "Sorry I did not post on Caring Bridge or email you but I have been praying...but to be honest, most of my prayers were for Holly"  Music to my ears!  It was those quiet, hidden, yet super-powerful prayers that made all the difference.

There were two instances during the worst of it for Holly that she considered overdosing.  Both times she heard God speak to her, telling her "no, I have a purpose for your life".  I know that I know that I know it was because of those quiet, unassuming, faithful, invisible saints out there praying for her that stopped something bad from getting worse.  Holly knows it too.

If you wonder how prayer works- I do not have an answer.  If you wonder IF prayer works, I will tell you I know that it does; it always does.  And sometimes our most powerful prayer comes in the form of breathing....

Honest sighing is faith breathing and whispering in the ear; the life is not out of faith, where there is sighing, looking up with the eyes, and breathing toward God.

                                                                                      - Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661)