Why or What?

"Even in laughter the heart may ache, and joy may end in grief." - Proverb 14:13

What an irony.. That verse from the bible is definitely true and I believe many of you will agree. Pondering upon that verse, I looked back at my own life and how true, it applies to me. Good news followed by bad news. Even good deeds might end up with horrible return. All those doesn't sound nice to any human ear but that's just how God works in the lives of certain people.

God is a sovereign God whereby He is in control over everything, good or bad. When the good happens to us, we might give thanks to Him but often He's not the first we say thanks. Then when bad things happen, we ask God why this why that.. Maybe asking God why isn't the correct question.

Suppose that God showed us the reasons why He allowed the bad things to happen, would it have satisfied us? Probably not. A man by the name of Cecil Murphey gave this example. After he was married, he kept asking his wife "Why do you fry eggs that way?", "Why do you put garlic in the salad?", etc... One day, as he was asking his wife questions like these, his wife turn off the stove and sat next to him. She asked him, "When you ask me why, I feel like you're really saying I shouldn't do it that way. Is that what you're doing?" Cecil was shocked by the question from his wife. He couldn't deny that what his wife said was true. All these while the only cooking he has tasted is his mum's cooking, and his wife did things differently. He then realize that when he asked those why questions, he was actually telling her not to do it that way.

From that example, I believe when we ask God the why question, we are not wanting the information. It won't make us feel any better if God had really told us why. Its more like we're not bold enough to tell God that we knew a better way to do things. Maybe the better question would be "What is going on?"

After all, we might have to look inward first before charging God with our uncaring tone. Self-examination is what I mean. If we really mean serious business with God, it pushes us to question our motives and to ponder what we really want. One mirror won't be enough to look at our whole image, we need to stand in between two mirrors, that is when we see the parts of ourselves that we don't like to view.

Instead of the mean, uncaring tone we sometimes charge God with, is it just possible that this may be the most tender and kind method of showing us who we really are so that we can become more of who God wants us to be?

Are we at that level of boldness??