"I'm not a perfect parent, but I've worked hard to faithfully love my kids and teach them God's truth. So why, oh why, are they in the trouble they're in right now?" "Years of labour to build up this business, and it's all wiped out in a sudden market crash! Lord, why? Was all my toil for nothing?" "All day long on the news, all I see is people around the world being oppressed, and their oppressors are laughing all the way to the bank! Where is justice?" "Christians around the world are being slaughtered for their faith, and the West is silent. How long, O Lord, how long?" Or maybe it's as mundane as, "I'm not even done with the laundry for 2 seconds and someone falls face first into the mud. Will the cycle never end?!"
Futility. It's all around us. And if we're really honest, these are the kinds of cries that plague us, even if we really believe that God is good, and in control, and trustworthy. But if we're also really honest, many of us feel some level of guilt about asking such questions. I mean, if I was a good Christian, I wouldn't ask those kinds of questions--I would just trust God and rejoice always, right? I saw an interview once with a well-known Christian who had just suffered terribly tragic circumstances, but who was testifying that he was given such faith that the question "Why?" never even crossed his mind. And I felt guilty because I've never faced anything like he had, and yet I've asked hard questions about the pain in this world.
But Ecclesiastes is a book that calls us to question our doubts about our questions, because it is a book FULL of hard questions, of groaning under the seeming futility of life, of weariness in the face of life's difficulties. Right from the get-go, we are faced with the outburst, "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does a man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" Not very comforting, eh?
We like the book of Proverbs because it seems to present a neatly ordered, logical universe where the hard-working prosper, the wise stay out of trouble, and the godly man enjoys a good life. We struggle with Ecclesiastes because it takes us to a world where children are trained up in the way they should go, and lo and behold, they depart from it! It is a world where the hard-working may lose everything in a single sweep of God's hand, where the wise live in wisdom and still die like the rest of mankind, where our toil is futile and we cry out with the Psalmist, "Why do the wicked proper? How long, O LORD?" This is a world where even the people of God come up against seeming absurdity, futility, vanity.
Like Job and the Psalms, Ecclesiastes shows us that God is not afraid of our hard questions and our groaning. In fact, he is so interested in our hard questions that he's written them up in his book. If we were afraid to ask, it's right there on the page, begging for answers.
Here's the thing: The Bible never calls us to be stoics, leaving all those earthly, human emotions stuffed in the back of the closet (with the awkward cousin, no doubt), while we piously repeat our mantra, "All things work together for good... all things work together for good..." and pull ourselves forward to a better day. It also never calls us to the happy-happy-joy-joy kind of "faith" that always responds immediately to job loss, illness, war, oppression or death with a "Hallelujah! Life is great!"
We are called to praise God in all circumstances, yes. Job DID fall down and worship even when his property and family were wiped out (Job 1:20-22). And all things DO work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). But we live in a once-perfect world horribly distorted by sin, terribly twisted by futility. And we FEEL it. So often, we spout Romans 8:28 at ourselves and others in pain without the context. We skip the part Paul didn't--a creation full of suffering that groans, that feels futile, that longs. And we also groan inwardly as we wait for creation to be made new. We hope, yes, but often it is a groaning hope.
Paul himself was given a thorn, and while he says he is content with it, that did not come until he had PLEADED with the Lord 3 times to remove it (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Jesus himself, very God of very God, as he was in agony on the cross, cried out and groaned under the weight of his suffering. He wasn't just making a neat theological point about the end of Psalm 22 when he screamed out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34) Even our martyred brothers and sisters who stand before the very throne of God in heaven are crying out, "How long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10)
Yes, there's a way to ask hard questions with a bitter and angry spirit that challenges the goodness and wisdom of God, that thinks it knows better. And yes, we must avoid that. But there is a questioning and a weeping that is very much a part of biblical Christianity. It is a groaning that presses on in faith even when the answers aren't quick in coming. It is a mourning that sits and weeps with those who weep, rather than offering platitudes, or demanding that they just trust God and get over it. It is a faith that leaves room for people to ask hard questions about the meaning of life and the absurdities of suffering without panicking that God can't handle the heat.
Is there room in your Bible for hard questions?
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