{"id":1403,"date":"2019-08-07T18:36:28","date_gmt":"2019-08-07T18:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2019-08-07T18:36:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T18:36:28","slug":"why-god-lesson-from-james-about-how-to-ask-god-tough-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/?p=1403","title":{"rendered":"Why, God? Lesson from James about how to ask God tough questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the standard one-word questions that make up a journalist&#8217;s toolbox, none can be as revealing as the question, &#8220;Why?&#8221;<br \/>\nParents of young children hear this question a lot \u2014 Why can&#8217;t I have Lucky Charms for breakfast every morning? Why do I need to share with my sister? Why did grandpa have to die?<\/p>\n<p>In searching for some new songs and material for youth group recently, I came across this song video from Austin French, asking &#8220;Why, God?&#8221; I like his commentary in the beginning, tying the endless barrage of &#8220;why&#8221; questions we receive as parents to the sometimes difficult and loaded &#8220;why&#8221; questions we find ourselves asking God when things are not going the way we&#8217;d like. The video behind the music may seem a little quirky, but I think it is a great talking point that I recently shared with our youth group. Check it out:<\/p>\n<div class=\"fitvids-video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iv_Pf7bDZj4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Thankfully, we serve a God that encourages us to communicate with Him. There are reminders in both the New (1 Peter 5:7) and Old (Psalms 55:22) to cast our cares, worries and anxieties on Him \u2014 that God will sustain us. We don&#8217;t need an intercessor \u2014 someone to be the go-between when speaking to God. We can approach Him directly in prayer with our concerns, our praises and even our &#8220;why&#8221; questions.<\/p>\n<p>As I prepared this lesson for the youth, I was drawn numerous times to the book of James \u2014 specifically James 1:5:\u00a0<em>If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God,\u00a0who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.<\/em> (NIV).<\/p>\n<p>What a cool verse, and one that many have memorized and reference often. However, that verse doesn&#8217;t offer the complete picture. James 1:6 adds context to the verse before it, starting with the tiny, yet critical, word &#8220;but:&#8221;\u00a0<em>But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt,\u00a0because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.<\/em> (NIV)<\/p>\n<p>That verse offers the blueprint of how we should approach God with our &#8220;why&#8221; questions \u2014 and illustrates that we aren&#8217;t to be taking those moments lightly. If we cross the line drawn in the sand by James 1:6, the author suggests the harsh penalties we face in verses 7-8:\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-30274\" class=\"text Jas-1-7\"><sup class=\"versenum\">\u00a0<\/sup><em>That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.<\/em><\/span><em>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-30275\" class=\"text Jas-1-8\"><sup class=\"versenum\">\u00a0<\/sup>Such a person is double-minded\u00a0and unstable\u00a0in all they do.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>What does it mean that we should &#8220;believe and not doubt&#8221; when we approach God with a tough &#8220;why&#8221; question? In my opinion, it is in the attitude of how we ask.<\/p>\n<p>For example, picture a little child who wants to go to a friend&#8217;s house but his parents say &#8220;no.&#8221; Ideally, the child accepts the answer and moves on. However, if he asks his parents in true innocence &#8220;why,&#8221; not as a way of being defiant or questioning their authority, but because he is wondering if there is something wrong with his friend or other purely neutral reason, I think this is how we as Christians approach God.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine the alternative, an angry, eye-rolling teenager who can&#8217;t believe his parents dare limit his ability to see a friend. In that case, the &#8220;why&#8221; goes beyond an innocent gesture of information gathering and becomes a tool \u2014 a weapon \u2014 of disobedience. In this scenario, the teen isn&#8217;t accepting the authority of the parents, and is questioning their judgement.<\/p>\n<p>When we go to God with a heavy &#8220;why, God&#8221; question, how are we approaching Him? According to James, it is important that we be mindful of the attitude behind our questioning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the standard one-word questions that make up a journalist&#8217;s toolbox, none can be as revealing as the question,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1045,1047,1043,40,878,1044,1042,1046],"class_list":["post-1403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-walk","tag-austin-french","tag-christian-song","tag-james","tag-object-lesson","tag-peter","tag-psalms","tag-questioning-god","tag-why-god"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1403"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1406,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1403\/revisions\/1406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crosshairscommunity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}