So much of life is just plain easier to handle when we know the reasons why.
When I was teaching composition and grammar, I spent a lot of time trying to give context to the seemingly endless rules of English. Most of my students were much more comfortable in their science or engineering classes. So they did better when I explained why. Why you can’t just claim something in your argument. Why we have punctuation, what it does and where it came from. And when they knew the whys, they were much more willing to work with me.
That’s true for most of us, I think. Knowing the reasons why makes it easier for us to keep going when we are tempted to give up. It helps to have something to anchor ourselves to when things get hard. So we spend a lot of time demanding WHYS.
Asking God For Answers
Like a child repeating that question to his parent, we spend our days asking God and each other to explain. We want answers. We want the reasons why.
- Why did that person hurt me?
- Why didn’t I get that job?
- Why can’t I figure this out?
- Why won’t things go my way?
We ask and demand and, to be honest, God doesn’t always answer. He asks us to trust him and keep going. Most of the time, we have to walk by faith, without the context or the whys. But sometimes, when it’s important for us to know, God answers. Sometimes, he gives us the reasons why.
God’s Reasons Why: Judges 2:20-3:1
- To test them
- To train them
Some of the Canaanites were left because the people had promised God they would do all that he commanded them. And he had commanded them to drive out the people who inhabited the land. At any point someone in Israel could have looked over and said, “Wait. Why are we letting these people live here? God said to defeat them, let’s get to it!” God was testing them to see just how committed to him they really were. Not with their words, but with their lives. And it turned out, their lives weren’t on the table after all. Seeing the people God had said to conquer should have rubbed in their hearts, a constant irritation. But instead, they moved in beside the people, they got used to seeing them there, and then they began to worship and live right along with them. In other words, they failed the test.
The Second Reason
God left their enemies among them as a test, yes. But more than that, he left them so that they would learn warfare. God used them to train his people to fight the battles they still needed to fight.
But … this was the promised land, dang it. When I picture the promised land, I think of a place where God had taken away all my problems and erased all my temptations. But that’s not at all what God had in mind, it seems. Because the promised land isn’t heaven. It wasn’t for Israel, and it isn’t for me. The successes God grants in my battles against sin and the ways he changes me to be more like Christ are all amazing and should inspire me to worship and enjoy and trust God more. But there will always be battles to fight.
If God removed all the enemies, his people would forget how to fight, and they would be easy prey for an enemy who wanted to take their land. So he left them people who required them to fight sometimes, to rise up and go to battle and win. So they wouldn’t forget.
This is not the same thing as fighting in our own strength. The battle is won in God’s strength. But if we forget how to do battle, we will be unprepared when our enemies rise up against us.
It would be so great if God would just make all our problems and temptations and sins and disputes and injustices go away when we come to him. They hurt. Sometimes they win. And when they do, I wonder again why God doesn’t just fix it all for me.
Here’s our reason why: to train us. So we are never out of practice in relying on him, going to battle with him, and waiting for his victory in our lives.
Our enemies are a gift, an opportunity, a provision that God makes in our lives. I guess I need to spend less time complaining about them and more time saying thanks. How about you?
