Friday, January 1, 2021
O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Your glory is higher than the heavens. You have taught children and infants to tell of your strength, silencing your enemies and all who oppose you. When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers—the moon and the stars you set in place—what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them charge of everything you made, putting all things under their authority—the flocks and the herds and all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, and everything that swims the ocean currents. O Lord, our Lord, your majestic name fills the earth! Psalm 8:1-9(NLT)
When you’re little the big questions always
begin with “why”. Children want to know why they can’t have that whole
gallon of chocolate chip ice cream. They want to know why they must go to
bed now. They want answers!
The questions usually expand with age and
curiosity. If the curiosity continues to grow, and never finds
its home in faith, the questions tend to lead down the path to cynicism and
despair…and more wrong answers.
But if faith in the Creator leads anywhere at all,
it always comes back to this basic question of WHY; why…me? Why
am I alive: what purpose does this life serve?
The cynics who have come up empty and devoid of
faith will say there is no purpose; we are meaningless blobs of protoplasm that
have managed to evolve and pollute the earth to the point where it will
eventually fold us back into a tangled mess with all the other useless,
meaningless beings of all time. One day this planet will explode or
implode; just choose your poison!
Those who choose to believe this kind of nonsense
will also find a way to make a complex answer to every other simple question like
two plus two equals seventy-one, unless its Tuesday, in which case I want
the answer to be different…I’ll let you know what that answer is if you will
just be quiet about God.
But those who have taken the leap of faith will
eventually arrive at a more meaningful discovery to the question of “why” –
that answer is: because…God!
Going back to the beginning of human existence we
find the answer to life’s most basic question:
So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them….Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper who is just right for him.” Genesis 1:27, 2:18(NLT)
We are created in God’s
image, with a hunger for relationship (the response God hardwired in each of us
because He knew it is not good to be alone). And since that is so, it is also true of the
One in Whose image we are created. This is the portal of understanding
for every other question that begins with Why…?
It takes faith (and a little common sense) to
begin with the answer (God) and work back to where your questions live…but
that’s the substance of things not seen; the evidence of things hoped for…that’s
the magnificent path of discovery you’ll find when you ask God “why” like a
Psalmist!
For You Today
If you’ve ever
felt uncomfortable with not having the answers, try resting in the purpose for
which God created you in the first place…relationship with Him!
[1] Title
Image: Courtesy Pixabay.com
[2] Hebrews
11:1(NLT)
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
For other posts on this text see Wondering About the Big Stuff - Part 2 and Wondering About the Big Stuff - Part 3
This devotion first appeared on Rocky Road Devotions Friday, August
28, 2017
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