ANSWERS

ANSWERS

            I have a friend who has all the answers.  That’s right.  It does not matter what the question is, she has the answer.  Of course, sometimes I find her answers a bit dubious, a bit questionable.  But she always has an answer for whatever my objection is. 

            I teach public speaking at a technical college.  When my students give persuasive speeches, they must have a question and answer period at the end of their speeches.  The audience is given a chance to ask for clarification or a chance to challenge the speaker’s conclusions.  I always prepare the students for the question session by saying, “Don’t be afraid of the questions.  If you have prepared thoroughly you will know your material and the questions will not be a problem. But most importantly, you don’t have to have an answer for everything.  It is perfectly alright for you to say, ‘I am sorry.  I don’t know the answer to that.  My research did not mention that.’  You don’t have to have an answer for every question.”

            In these last few weeks and months, I have been confronted with one situation after another for which I have no answers.  These situations have rocked my world.  I confess to you that I have been angry.  I have looked for the imprecatory Psalms and addressed God with the words of a few.  (Imprecatory Psalms, according to Theopedia.com, are “those Psalms that contain curses or prayers for the punishment of the psalmist’s enemies.  To imprecate means to invoke evil upon, or curse.)  “Destroy them in wrath, destroy them that they may be no more!”—Psalm 59; “O God, shatter their teeth in their mouth!”—Psalm 58; “Let his days be few. . . . Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow!”—Psalm 109.  I guess you can tell that I am angry.

            But in addition to my anger, I am helpless.  I cannot change the situations, nor do I have answers for either my questions or others’ questions.  I cannot explain why God has allowed these situations.  I have wept and questioned.  In fact, I have confirmed that the older I get, the fewer answers I have, the less I know, the less I understand.

            Last week a Scripture passage took on a new meaning for me.  I Corinthians 13 is called “the love chapter.”  I took comfort in a different part of the chapter.  I Corinthians 13:11 and 12, “When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”  Someday I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known.  Someday I will understand things that are incomprehensible now.  Someday I will have some answers.  (I am not even sure that I will need answers then.)

Who knows me fully now?  Only God.  Psalm 139:2-4 says, “You understand my thought from afar.  You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all.”  Babbie Mason’s song says, “When you don’t understand, when you can’t see His plan, when you can’t trace His hand, trust His heart.”  So for now, I have no answers, but I will trust His heart.

                                                                                    ~~Faith Himes Lamb