Three Questions People Would Like to Ask God

SUSAN’S questions about God began at age seven, when her nine-year-old friend Al was hospitalized with polio and confined to an iron lung. She wrote about her experience in the January 6, 2013, issue of The New York Times. After visiting Al in the hospital, Susan asked her mother: “Why would God do that to a little boy?” “The priest would say God must have his reasons,” her mother replied, “but I don’t know what they could be.” Two years later, in 1954, Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine became available, and Susan’s mother suggested that perhaps God had guided his research. “Well, God should have guided the doctors a long time ago so that Al wouldn’t be in an iron lung,” Susan replied. Susan summed up the account of her childhood experience by writing: “[Al] was to die only eight years later, by which time I was a committed atheist.” Like Susan, many people who have suffered from tragedy or have witnessed it are unable to find satisfying answers to their questions about God. Some become atheists. Others may not entirely deny God’s existence, but they become skeptical. It is not that atheists and skeptics are completely unfamiliar with religion. On the contrary, their experience with religion is often what pushes them toward disbelief. Organized religion, they may feel, has failed to answer life’s tough questions. What kind of questions? Ironically, they are often the same questions that people who claim to have faith in God struggle with. Consider three questions that many people would like to ask God, if given the chance, and the answers that the Bible provides. 

1. WHY DO YOU ALLOW SUFFERING?

Why ask that question?

‘A loving God would prevent life’s tragedies,’ many conclude.

TO THINK ABOUT: We might find the habits and customs of people from another culture to be strange—perhaps even shocking. We could easily misinterpret their actions. For example, in one culture people feel that maintaining eye contact is a sign of sincerity; in another they see it as a sign of disrespect. Yet even in such cases, there would be no reason to say that they are wrong. Instead, we just need to get to know them better.

Could something similar happen when it comes to understanding God? Many believe that the presence of suffering proves that God does not exist. Others, though, who have come to understand why God has allowed suffering, are confident that he does exist.

WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS: God’s thoughts and ways are different from ours. (Isaiah 55:8, 9) Because of that, his actions, as well as his reasons for waiting before he acts, may at first seem strange to us.

Still, the Bible does not ask us to accept such hollow expressions as “God works in mysterious ways.” Instead, it encourages us to learn more about God, helping us to understand why and when he acts as he does. * We can even draw close to him.—James 4:8.