The Purpose

Why?

Deep down, isn’t that what we all want to know? Why did the accident have to happen? Why did 4 teenage girls die? Why will 36 kids, lots of parents, and tons of family and friends have 30 feet of nightmares for a very long time to come?

We think that if we can figure out THE PURPOSE, then it will make sense, and we can have closure. Perhaps it won’t be as sad. Perhaps it won’t be repeated.

But that’s not the way it works. And we know that too, deep down.

Why God allows bad things to happen to good people is the unanswerable question. It defies our sense of justice, that sense of justice that we inherited from God, by the way. He made us to expect apples from apple trees, oranges from orange trees, to reap what we sow. To expect that if we do what is right, then nothing will go wrong.

So when the reverse happens, and innocent children die for no apparent reason, we can get stuck in the quagmire of whys.

We crawl out at times on our own flimsy boards of reasoning: maybe it was for a wake-up call to pull other students on the right track; maybe the girls who died were prepared for heaven now and might not have been later; maybe it will prompt safety alterations that will prevent more deaths in the future.

But whatever excuses for answers we come up with, we know they fall short. We’re missing too many puzzles pieces, ones that our eyes can’t see. So eventually we change the question. Instead of “Why are they gone?”, we ask “Why am I here?”

We do know that God created us intentionally and deliberately to live. More specifically, to live for Him. By design, our purpose is to reach out for our Creator and touch others as we do that.

So while we can’t answer why God allowed Nicole, Christina, Tanesha, and Crystal to die this week, God has given answers about why we are still here. To love Him and to love others. Thoughtfully, willfully, and voluntarily.

One way we do that is to put our arms around those struggling with the first question.

Then one day when we’ve all gone home to stay, our Father will wrap his arms around us and make all His purposes plain.

Lisa