The Wrong Question

I wish I could tell you I’ve reached a place in my faith where I simply trust God without questions.

The truth is, I still ask “why” far more often than I’d like to admit.

Not always out loud.

Sometimes it’s hidden behind frustration.

Sometimes it’s disguised as analysis.

Sometimes it looks like me trying to connect all the dots so the pain makes sense.

I have spent a lot of my life believing there must be a reason for everything. If I can just understand the reason, then maybe I can understand the pain. Maybe I can accept the disappointment. Maybe I can finally move forward.

After all, Scripture tells us that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

The problem is that God promises everything will work together for good.

He never promises I’ll understand that good while I’m living through it.

That’s where trust becomes difficult.

And that is exactly where John 9 found me.

Jesus and His disciples encounter a man who had been blind from birth. Before anyone talks to the man, before anyone considers his humanity, the disciples ask a theological question:

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2)

For years I read that verse and immediately identified with the blind man.

Recently, though, I realized I’m much more like the disciples.

I see something painful and immediately start searching for a cause.

Why did that happen?

Why did they leave?

Why did that prayer go unanswered?

Why did that door close?

Why did my parents die?

Why did I spend years battling anger that was rooted in abandonment and wounds I didn’t choose?

Why did I move across the country into what felt like one wilderness season after another?

Why?

Why?

Why?

The disciples believed suffering always had an explanation they could identify.

If there was pain, somebody sinned.

If there was suffering, somebody caused it.

If there was hardship, somebody deserved it.

This way of thinking is often called the theology of retribution. It assumes blessings are always rewards and suffering is always punishment.

The problem is that life doesn’t fit neatly into those categories.

Neither does God.

What amazes me is Jesus’ response.

He says:

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned.” (John 9:3)

Then He does something incredibly frustrating.

He refuses to answer their actual question.

Jesus tells them what it isn’t.

He never explains why it happened.

He corrects their assumption, but He leaves their curiosity unsatisfied.

And that bothers me because I realize how often I approach God looking for explanations.

Yet God never promised explanations.

He promised revelation.

Those are two very different things.

God is committed to making Himself known.

He is not obligated to make His decisions understood.

That realization has challenged me deeply.

Because what I often call a faith problem is actually an explanation problem.

I trust God when I understand.

I struggle when I don’t.

I trust God when I can see the path.

I struggle when all I can see are questions.

The enemy knows this too.

He loves to live in the gap between what we see and what God is doing.

In that gap he whispers assumptions.

God forgot you.

God isn’t listening.

God isn’t working.

God doesn’t care.

Yet Scripture repeatedly calls us to fill those gaps with trust instead.

One thing that stood out to me during my study was the disciples’ assumption that the blindness must have been connected to sin. Their thinking was likely influenced by passages like Exodus 20:5 where God speaks of visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.

The problem is they misunderstood what God was saying.

The Hebrew word translated as “iniquity” is avon.

It means something bent, twisted, warped, or crooked.

It speaks of the distortion sin creates.

God was not teaching that children are punished for sins they never committed.

He was teaching that crookedness has consequences.

Pain travels.

Patterns travel.

Brokenness travels.

Anyone who has ever lived long enough knows that is true.

Some wounds are inherited before we ever choose them.

Some fears arrive before we understand where they came from.

Some survival mechanisms become so normal that we don’t realize we’re carrying them.

I know what that feels like.

Yet Exodus is not the end of the story.

Isaiah 53 tells us:

“The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

The avon.

The crookedness.

The distortion.

The bent places.

The wounds we created and the wounds we inherited.

Jesus carried all of it.

What was handed to me does not have to be what I hand to someone else.

That may be one of the most freeing truths in Scripture.

As I sat with John 9, I realized something else.

The blind man never gets an explanation.

Not once.

Jesus never tells him why he was blind.

Instead, Jesus reveals Himself.

Maybe that’s because God’s greatest goal is not answering every question I have.

Maybe His greatest goal is revealing who He is.

Looking back over my life, I can see that now.

I still don’t have answers to every “why.”

I don’t know why certain losses happened.

I don’t know why some seasons lasted as long as they did.

I don’t know why some prayers took years.

I don’t know why some wounds were part of my story.

But I know this:

God’s track record is impeccable.

Every season I thought would destroy me somehow became a testimony.

Every wilderness eventually revealed something about His character.

Every unanswered question became another opportunity to decide whether I wanted explanations more than I wanted Him.

I still ask “why” sometimes.

Probably more often than I should.

But I’m learning that faith is not trusting because I understand.

Faith is trusting because God is trustworthy.

And maybe that’s the lesson hidden inside John 9.

The disciples wanted an explanation.

Jesus offered a revelation.

And revelation has always been worth more than an answer.