The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?”

If you could ask God any question, what would it be?” Today I’m going to address some of the “Why?” questions of the human heart.

There is a general consensus that we should never lift our voices toward heaven and ask the question, “Why God?’ If God should strike dead every person who had ever lifted eyes toward heaven and cried out, “Why?  Why did you allow this to happen?” there would be few people yet alive on planet earth.

Perhaps it will assuage your guilt over asking “Why?” somewhat to realize that the first “Why?” question in the Bible was not spoken by either Adam or Eve or their offspring, it was God the Father who confronted Cain, following the death of his brother Abel. Genesis 1:6 says, “The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?”  “I don’t know!” he responded. He was not only guilty of his brother’s murder, but he compounded that by trying to lie to God!” The writer of the New Testament book of Hebrews observed, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do” (Hebrews 4:13, KJV).

Should you check a computerized concordance of various words in the Bible, you will discover that there are hundreds and hundreds of individuals who have asked, “Why?” Even God’s own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who laid aside his attributes of deity to become fully human as well as fully God lifted his eyes toward heaven and asked His Father “Why?” when it seemed that the Father had forsaken him in this crucial. Both Matthew and Mark record the darkness that shrouded Jesus. Matthew wrote, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46; also see Mark 15:34).

During the ministry of Jesus as he taught the multitudes, he often asked the “Why?” question, at times chiding them for their unbelief or wrongdoing. In a passage that we usually call, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus asked, “Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:28-30).

On more than a few occasions Jesus ask the “Why?” question.  He said, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye….” (Matthew 7:3) and when the winds were whipping the water to a molten frenzy on Galilee, he asked the disciples, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith” (Matthew 8:26).

Time allows just one more thought.  Does God become angry when we pour our hearts out in anguish, and lift our voices crying, “Why, God?  Why me?” Long ago, David, a man after God’s own heart, wrote, “As a father shows compassion to those who fear him, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust” (Psalm 103:12-14). Someday you’ll understand so for now just trust the Father’s heart. I fully believe that, someday when we stand in Heaven, we will have the answers. Until then, we must walk by faith.

Resource reading: Psalm 103: 6-18