We Will All Die Wondering Why

Job 38-42

“And Job died, an old man and full of days.”  42:17 last verse of  Job

Who are you?  That is God’s ultimate question to Job and to all of us.  It is a courageous act to sit and honestly answer that question.  It leads to the real question: will you find ultimate meaning in yourself or will you discover that you need Someone else to give you meaning?

No one can answer the questions God asked Job! 

Paul Gauguin, a gifted artist whose work I greatly admire, posed this question to himself.  In 1891, he left his wife, family and Paris to pursue his answer. He lived as a bohemian savage, rejecting social norms and living as his appetites dictated.  He moved to Tahiti, painted his master works and died of an overdose of morphine, while suffering from alcoholism, depression and syphilis.  He asked all the right questions, but accepted all the wrong answers. 

Job also asked all the right questions, but in the end he wasn’t given any of the answers.  Job was never given the answer to why he had to suffer the loss of all his children, his wealth and his health.  Yes, God restored it all to him, but He did not explain Himself.  In the end Job died wondering ‘why?’

In the end we will all die with no answer to many of life’s most critical questions.  We can die wrapped in our own cold, dead arms or we can die wrapped in the faithful, loving arms of God in Christ Jesus.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16  “Jesus told her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.’”  John 11:25

Gauguin's "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?"
Painted in Tahiti