Answers. I like them. According to all tests, I'm a J on the Myers-Briggs, so I like decisions to be clear (and preferrably made quickly). I like to be right. I like to know the answers.
Only I don't think life is conducive to that, very often. One of my wise friends says to assume God is sending what we ask for or something better. My optimistic self wants to believe that, but then I think about the Jews and the Holocaust, and I wonder. No answers. Job didn't really get answers to his questions either. All he wanted was to have his day in God's court, I suppose to accuse God. What he got was God accusing him, nailing him with questions. Not answers.
Moses asks God how to tell the Israelites who God is. God just says "I am that I am." Not really an answer. We have turned that cryptic response into a name - Yahweh or Jehovah - but it's still not really clear, is it?
Why did the Levite chop his concubine into pieces? What were you thinking then, God? Were you behind that grisly effort? What was the reasoning behind Lot sending his daughters out to be raped instead of the heavenly visitor? Were you there with them?
How do I help the couple who comes to me, on disability, addicted to tobacco, $2000 behind in their rent? How do we work for the improved economy of Elkhart, what can you say to the thousands of people here who have no work and no prospects? What will happen when the unemployment runs out?
That doesn't even include cancer (something God created? a mutation? what purpose does it serve?) and child abuse.
My Jewish friend asks, "If Jesus was really the Messiah, why are people still dying? Don't you Christians think he conquered death?"
I don't have an answer - I am sure there is a theologically sound one, but it won't really answer him. He wants to SEE the resurrection, and I am no different. We both want answers. All we ever get is faith. All the Jews in the Holocaust got was faith. God just doesn't give us the answers we crave.
Jesus didn't answer a lot of questions; in fact, he asked more than he answered, just like God in Job. Jesus didn't solve his disciples' problems or end poverty in their lifetime, though some commentators say the Devil gave him a chance. A lot of Jesus's friends ended up with many more problems because they followed him. Some of them died for it. Answering questions, making it all make sense, doesn't seem very important to God.
Not trying to be depressing. It's just life. Sometimes, there aren't answers. Jesus just gave us himself, without answering a single question. Maybe that's the way to live without answers. Maybe that's the way God intends it to be.
I have no answer for that, either.
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