Why? What a good question. It is a question that my wife and I are quite tired of. We have a intelligent and inquisitive (quite a challenging combination!) four-year-old who incessantly asks us, "Why?"

Then, no matter how good our answer, the follow up question is, "Why?" And on, and on, and on until we "ask" him to stop! It goes something like this:

"Daddy, why do we wear shoes?" "To protect our feet from getting hurt."

"Why would our feet get hurt?" "Because the ground is hard."

"But the grass is soft. It won't hurt our feet. Why do we need shoes then?" "Because we don't always walk on the grass. There are sidewalks and streets too."

"But they don't hurt. Why do we need shoes?" "After awhile, walking on a hard surface hurts your feet, son."

"Why?" "Because we live in the city and our feet aren't used to hard surfaces."

"Why?" "OK, OK... you can take off your shoes!"

Stretching Like Moses
God keeps bringing me back to the same old question... Why? It's a question few of us think of. We are often more concerned with the "whats" than with the "whys". The "whats" are easier to answer. They require little thought and emotional energy. When we ask someone why they do this or that, their typical answer is something along the lines of "Because we've always done it that way" or "I dunno."

I can feel God challenging me to stretch. I feel like Moses in Numbers 20. The nation of Israel looked to him as their leader. The problem was that they were a bunch of whiners. And when they complained, it was against Moses and his brother Aaron.

They were wandering in the desert (on their way to the promised land) and were in a place without water to drink. Since their supply of water was exhausted, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

It's kind of funny that they would grumble against Moses and Aaron, since the Israelites were only following God's pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. It was God that was guiding them, not Moses and Aaron. God was stretching Moses' faith.

Anything that God asks us to do will require faith. What He asks might seem simple, but it is always a stretch.- John Perrin

I'm sure Moses must've been thinking, "God, what in the world are you asking of me? I mean, whacking the rock with my staff was one thing, but just walking up to it and saying, 'Water, come forth' (or something like that)... that's crazy!" The people were madder at him than ever. A mistake now would've have surely cost him his life.

Once again, Moses was at a decision point. Would he trust God and obey or try things his own way?

And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, "Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together, thou, and Aaron thy brother, and speak ye unto the rock before their eyes; and it shall give forth his water, and thou shalt bring forth to them water out of the rock: so thou shalt give the congregation and their beasts drink."

And Moses took the rod from before the LORD, as he commanded him. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, "Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock?"

And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice: and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their beasts also.
(Num. 20:7-11)

Once again, Moses gathered the people together and took the staff with him. At crunch time, though, he instead decided to fall back on what had worked before. He whacked the rock. This time, though, it took two whacks. God did oblige him, but he had disobeyed. Water once again gushed out and the people drank their fill and had plenty for their animals too.

But it cost him dearly:

But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."
(Num.20:12)

Now let me explain something...God is not some Super-Cosmic Bean Counter that squashes us every time we mess up. But He does expect us to act on what we know.

Moses knew the God of the universe face to face. He had seen things that few of us have ever experienced. God wasn't asking something of him that he wasn't capable of giving.

God Cares About the "Whys"
God was asking Moses to trust Him. Anything that God asks us to do will require faith (Heb. 11:6). What He asks might seem simple, but it is always a stretch.

The good thing is that God deals with each of us based on our knowledge of Him. He knows what we're capable of and asks only that much of us. A person that has only recently given their heart to Christ isn't accountable for as much as those of us who have known Him for a long time. I am not held accountable to the same scale as you or anyone else, but only based on what I know.

God keeps bringing me back to "Why?" "Why do we do our service the way we do? Why do I respond the way I do in certain situations? Why haven't I reached out to my friend and told him about Christ?, etc."

Please understand that He isn't so much concerned with blind obedience (making us robots), but instead with the attitudes of our hearts. He wants us to serve Him out of love and respect, not fear; out of faith, not just obedience; because we WANT to, not because we HAVE to. The "whys" are all-important to Him.

Isaiah 1:19 says, "If you will be willing and obedient, you will enjoy the best the land has to offer." Notice both a "what" AND a "why" are the conditions of this verse.

Maybe you, too, need to ask yourself some whys. Why are you doing the things you're doing? Why do you (or don't you) spend time with Him on a daily basis? Why do you react to certain situations the way you do? Why do you avoid that certain person?

The list could go on and on. Remember, God isn't so much concerned with the "whats" but the "whys." We should be too.

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