Every once in a while, I read something that literally drops my jaw. Such was the case when I read, "Ask God How, Not Why" by Laura Story, author of "When God Doesn't Fix It."
If you're going through something--or have gone through something in your past--that does not make any sense at all, I urge you to read through the entire post. If your mind is open, the post will drop your jaw, too.
Story suggests an exercise. Take a sheet of paper and write down all your "Why" questions. I have a list of Why questions that I've marinated on in the past. You have your own Why questions. Then she suggests you flip the page and write some How questions.
I love the metaphorical act of flipping the page. It's as if we're saying, "Ok, I have lots of Why questions. Now I'm switching from the Why. I'm moving on to How."
She gives a list of suggested How questions, but you can make up your own. Her suggestions were enough to blow me away.
I highly recommend you do this. No matter what difficulty you're going through, I promise, this exercise will help you. Because my guess is this: what you're going through does NOT compute!
But here's where my jaw dropped. Story says this in closing:
God is good. He knows what, with His help, we can handle and where we most need to see His work. It's easy to sign up for a short-term mission project or donate money to a building campaign at church. And it's true; we can see God working in those places. But would you be willing to sign up for the brokenness in your life, if you knew your brokenness would bring glory to God and enable you to learn to trust Him in everything? We're tempted to measure our circumstances on the world's scale, but God's economy uses God-sized scales. His story is so much bigger than ours, and one day when we see it in totality, we'll have all the answers we desire.
Whoa! What? Check out the area I highlighted. I did sign up for a short term mission project. I do donate money to the church for building campaigns. But would I have signed up for the brokenness in my life to glorify God and learn to trust Him in everything?
No way. I wouldn't wish this on anyone, and I never would've signed up for it. But I do see how it's working for my good. Truly. Pain has a way of changing people--for better or worse. For me and my sons, it's changing us for the better. That's because God is in it, working, changing, transforming.
Do yourself a favor: read the post, do the exercise, and let your mind wander from Why to How.
Until next time...
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