September 25, 2022

Isaiah 42: 21 (NIV)
It pleased the Lord for the sake of his righteousness to make his law great and glorious.

We are not always happy with unanswered questions.*

My parents frequently answered my “why?” with, “Because I said so.” I wasn’t happy with that non-responsive response and used it sparingly with my own children. Yes, sometimes it was the right answer – but I still didn’t like it. I tried rewording it: “You don’t have to approve of my reasons; you just have to do what I tell you.” Or, “Because I’m in charge and you’re not.”

Like a good parent, some of God’s replies to “why” are more informative than others. Moses’ whys were largely ignored – perhaps because of the self-pitying nature of many of them. In his Psalms, David posed some whys that remained unanswered; likewise, Habakkuk and Hosea. In Deuteronomy, God’s answer many times was, “Remember you were slaves in Egypt.” Job suffered for a long time before he finally got his answer: more questions. And in Jeremiah, God answered the whys with variations of, “Because of what you have done.”

In this verse in Isaiah, the question is implied: “Why did God make his law great and glorious?” Many of our why questions could be answered satisfactorily with the same reply that Isaiah did: “Because it pleased the Lord for the sake of his righteousness.” It could very well serve as the response to the most heart-breaking why in all of scripture – of all time. From the cross, Jesus called out to his Father, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Did the Father answer? Or did Jesus already know? Had he not received his answer in the garden when he prayed until he bled? When everything went according to plan after he had surrendered to the Father’s will, did he not know that the answer to his why was, “Because it pleased the Lord for the sake of righteousness”?

When it seems our whys are being ignored, perhaps we should surrender our will – our supposed need to know – to the Father’s implied, “Because I said so.” What a step of faith that would be!

His wisdom does not need human acceptance or approval.*