The most difficult question...

Why did God allow this?

Many of us will spend countless hours trying to answer this one question.  It is a question that holds so much weight, and can build the highest walls between us and God.  

But I’ve come to understand that people who are holding onto this question like a flag over their pain, are simply asking the wrong question.

The right question is:  Jesus where were you in the midst of this situation?

In an earlier blog titled ‘How much control does God really have?’  I talked about the amount of control God has over our lives is directly related to how much control we give to Him.  (If you have questions about this you’ll need to go back and read that blog click here).  

But seeking after the answer to where He was in the midst of your painful situation is the best starting place you could find.  You see when you ask Him why He allowed this or that, the picture of your heart is you standing opposite of Him with your arms crossed. You are on one side, demanding an answer for His failures and He is on the other side, seemingly distant.  

So, let’s change that picture to you standing beside Him and asking Him to show you the situation through His eyes.  This changes the whole scenario to one that He can now speak into. There are times when one of my children is having a rough time and unable to calmly communicate their needs.  At times I will just sit there silently until they are finished with their exuberant expressions. Inevitably with enough time, they will look at me and realize that I’m not their enemy, and that I desperately want to help them, but I need them to be at a place where they can hear my words before I will speak, otherwise it is a waste of words.  And I don’t believe that scenario is much different than it is with God. He doesn’t waste words and He isn’t trying to pull you out of your fits. He’s okay with waiting till you come over beside Him and stop pointing the finger at Him.

We must stop seeing our past through the lens of all the bad that happened, and start seeing His ability to redeem all things as the only filter for our pain.  He either is our Redeemer, or He is not. We cannot call Him the Redeemer and then hold onto our perspective of His failure in our lack or pain.

I had a situation in my own life that I had been seeing wrong for 10 years.  In the moment when He revealed to me how the situation actually was, and how one mistake on my part was actually what caused the pain that I felt, I immediately had peace.  For 10 years I had this sticking part with Him, of God why did you allow this, but once I was ready to see what He could see and was trying to warn me of, I didn’t have shame or self condemnation, I just had relief like a breath of fresh air.

In 2018 during the Jewish New Year celebration, I was in the middle of rewriting the last book of The Compass Series.  It was a quiet night and I sat down on our porch to write. Immediately this part of the story poured out, that I had not intended to write or thought about before.  It’s a special meeting that takes place near the end of ‘W’ the last book of the series. It is the best picture I’ve ever seen about this specific question of ‘why didn’t God stop this or that.’  

I’m hesitant to share it because The Compass Series is an incredible experience and journey as a whole, and I don’t want to diminish that experience for anyone, but I also believe this will benefit those who never pick up the series, and so below is an excerpt from the last book, I pray it opens up the deep places in your heart and leads you to the path of freedom!

“There you two are,” I say as I step out onto the front porch.

“Hey there, North and I were just talking, and I was reminding him of why he is here.”

“Oh yeah, why is that?”

“Because you needed a friend, Bridget, a companion.  Someone to take care of you when you’re feeling low.”

“I guess I do, but honestly I think I could’ve used him more like a month ago than right now.”

“Ahh, yes.  Our self-determined time of need.”

“Our what?” I say with a look that says, I have no clue what you just said.

“Well, it’s like for me, I needed God to stop my dad from beating me when I was a kid.  I wasn’t even religious, but I’d cry out for help. And He never did. So, I figured He just wasn’t real.  Then when I was 16 and finally big enough to fight back, my Dad gets thrown in jail and spends the next 5 years not able to touch me again.  I needed my dad gone when I was 3. That’s when he hit me the first time. It sent me across the room. I spent years hating God and my dad. Honestly,” he says as he looks over at me and quiets his voice just a little bit.  “I had a plan and a gun, and the next time he laid a hand on me would’ve been the last. So then in my twenties I was off living the dream. Making music and just enough money to live. I was traveling all around and having so much fun.  I had everything I wanted, and I was so empty and still so angry. And one day I was sitting at the bar after a show and... I’m sorry, I’m talking too much again.”

“No, no please, keep going,” I say as I sit down next to him.  North sees me sit down and comes over and crawls into my lap.

“Well, I’m sitting at the bar, and this guy comes over and sits next to me.  He says hi and I say hi back, without even looking at him. Then he starts telling me about how God told him to come tell me that my dad going to jail was God’s way of saving me.  I just laughed and said. ‘Listen pal, I don’t know how you know anything about me, but my dad went to jail about 13 years too late. Either God isn’t real or He’s a really bad judge of timing.’  I looked over at this guy to see tears running down his face. And then I realized it was my dad. But it didn’t look like him and it didn’t sound like him. He turned to me and said, ‘Son, I know what I did to you, and I know what you were fixin to do to me, and I deserved it, but it would’ve stolen your life from you.  God wasn’t gonna force me to change, and unfortunately it cost you the most. But He wasn’t late, you just haven’t seen the whole picture yet. Me going to jail, saved your life. Son, I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m begging you for it.’

And you know what I did?”

“No, what?”

“I stood up and walked out of that bar.”

“Really?  Didn’t you want to forgive him, to give him a hug?”  I asked?

“No.  You see when your heart is cold like stone, one breath of warm air doesn’t penetrate it.  Sometimes it takes a lot more. So that’s what happened. I kept running into people that would look at me and tell me God loves me.  I was getting so sick of it. I would yell at God. You don’t love me! Love doesn’t look like what you’ve put me through. And do you know what God said to me?”

“What?”

“Nothing.  I spent a year hearing it from everyone else, but nothing from God.  I didn’t realize it then, but each person was warming up my heart. It didn’t matter that it was maddening when these complete strangers would say these God things to me.  Each time my heart was getting warmer and warmer to His embrace. And that’s when it happened,” he said as he paused in silence.

“What happened?” I said softly, trying to be respectful.

“Ahh, I’ll tell you some other time.”

“What! No, you won’t, tell me now.”

“Haha, I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

“Ughh,” I say shaking my head.

“Well, I had an encounter.”

“What’s that mean?”

“If you stop interrupting me I’ll tell you.”

“You, are ridiculous,” I say while slugging him in the arm.

“Ouch, fine I’ll tell you.  I met...,” he paused, but this time I could tell he was getting emotional.  “I’m sorry, please don’t hit me again,” he says laughing while tears start running down his cheeks.  “I met Jesus.”

“Jesus?  You mean the Sunday school character?  Flannelgraph, white robe, and a blue sash?”

“A little different than that picture, but yes,” he says laughing again with tears still running down his face.  “I was playing a show in a not so good part of town. It was late and afterwards I was walking back to my car when I got jumped by a few guys.  They just wanted my stuff, but when that first guy hit me, I had a flash-back to my dad and I went ballistic. I fought so hard and all the anger that was pent up inside of me came out like a tornado.  I had just gotten done beating the second guy to a pulp when the 3rd guy came up behind me and hit me across the head with a crowbar. I was out like a light. I ended up in the hospital for three weeks.  For two of them I was in a coma. They thought I would have brain damage from the intense swelling. I know I’m a little off my rocker, but I woke up completely fine,” he says smiling. “But those two weeks when I was dead to the world I was sitting talking with Jesus.”

“Really?  How is that possible?  I mean, I know strange things happen, but do you think it was just your mind making it up?”

“You know we don’t get to choose how God approaches us, Bridget, we just get to choose how we interact with it.  Do we receive it, and embrace it? Or do we try to make sense of it or see if it fits within our equations of life?  It’s only ever your choice.”

“So, what was it like?  You know, being with Jesus.”

“Well, it was like I was on this farm, but not really.  It felt like a place where food was grown and animals were present, but it wasn’t like a farm here where there’s just acres of open fields.  It was up in the mountains and there was a lake that He and I would sit next to. We didn’t talk, but just being beside Him was so peaceful and the only thing I wanted to do.  The first time we talked was when He took me to this place, it was a waterfall. It was the most amazing place I’d ever seen. Full of life and beauty. Anyways, we walked there and as we approached the edge of a pool of water He motioned to me to jump in.  It looked so appealing. I looked at Him, He nodded, and I jumped in head first. The moment my head hit the water my ears began to ring. It was so intense it seemed as if it would be painful, but it wasn’t, it was just overwhelming. And as I came back up to the surface.  I began to hear like I had never heard before. I mean I heard the birds and the crashing of the waterfall. I looked up and heard Him laughing, ‘How does that feel?’ He asked. ‘Why didn’t you talk to me before now?’ I questioned Him. He said He had been talking the whole time.  I just couldn’t hear Him. I asked Him if this was some sort of holy healing water. He just smiled at me and said that my surrender was what made it healing water. We spent the rest of the day sitting and talking. And that night He asked me if I trusted Him. I said yes. He led me into this cabin and we sat down in 2 wooden chairs facing an old TV screen.  He looked over at me with a look of apprehension as He turned it on. He then began to play every single scene from my childhood of me being beaten by my dad. But what was different this time was that He was in every single scene right there beside me, holding me through it. And as I looked closer at each scene, I could see He was crying. I put my head down into my hands.  I wasn’t sure I was ready. I stood up and looked at Him sitting there. And before the words left my mouth, He was answering the deep confusion in my heart. He said, ‘I know you feel like forgiving him is excusing his behavior. And I know that your pain was more of rejection and abandonment than it was from the physical abuse, but I promise you this is the only way for you to be free, and my friend, you were born to be free.’  I lashed out at Him screaming while I was crying, ‘But why didn’t you just stop it from happening? You’re God, right? You’re all powerful, right? Why didn’t you stop it?’ And He just looked at me as this look of sorrow spread over His face. He motioned to the chair. I sat back down still fuming as He turned the TV back on. I sat there in horror as I watched this man being beaten. Hit and whipped and spit at. I watched as pieces of his flesh were torn apart because of the whipping.  I heard the sounds, the groans, the agony of it all. I cringed inside, and then I heard a voice in the background saying, ‘If you’re truly the son of God, then why don’t you save yourself?’ I began weeping for this man. I mean the pain that I felt, the beatings that I endured were nothing in comparison to this. And then in the middle of it he looked up as if through the TV screen and straight into my soul. It was Jesus, the same Jesus who was sitting right beside me. I turned and looked at my new friend.  I could see the look of pain in His eyes as if He was reliving that moment. As if His body could still feel the sensations of pain echoing throughout. I looked over and said, ‘I’m sorry.’ He stood up and walked toward the door, so I followed Him. When we got outside He headed toward the lake. ‘Jesus,’ I said to him. ‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t save yourself. I mean, I think I would’ve.’ He looked over and smiled at me and said, ‘Rich, sometimes the opportunity for the reward outweighs the cost of the pain.  Unfortunately most people are so wrapped up in their pain that they never get to the place of being able to see their reward.’ We reached the edge of the lake and stood there for what seemed like hours without saying a word. And then as I felt more and more at peace, He turned to me and said, ‘Rich, if you want freedom, follow me.’ He then hugged me and as He was hugging me it was if I was being pulled into Him until I was just surrounded by light.

And then I woke up in the hospital bed.  I opened my eyes and the first person I saw was my dad with his hands folded looking up to heaven crying out.  Tears filled my eyes, as I whispered, ‘Dad, I forgive you.’ He looked down in shock then buried his head in my chest and wept for the next five minutes as he repeated over and over how sorry he was.”

Rich looked over at me with true and pure tears flowing down his cheeks.  “Bridget, I never found the right religion, I never found the right theology, or the right church.  I found a friend...” he stops then clears his throat. “I found a friend who went through more than I ever did and did it for me and never once complained about the pain in his journey.  He released the pain and embraced the reward, and I want everybody to know about him.”

This, friends is where we are headed!  However, the journey of freedom is not for the faint of heart.  Please spend some time today asking Jesus to show you how He sees the pain of your past.  Ask Him to lead you back through the painful situations and shine His light on them. I believe in you, and your necessary purpose on this earth for His Kingdom.  You are reading these writings because He has more for your life, but freedom is the only way there. Let’s journey together!

Thank you for reading, for more info on The Compass Series click here.