The Why Question

Sometimes I wonder what God is doing. I know He loves me but why am I locked up in a prison in disciplinary confinement (DC) for something I didn’t do? All around me I hear the perverse voices of wicked, evil men. Why? What have I done to deserve this?

When I think about the why question I think of Job, a man who loved God; who lost all his animals, his servants, and his 10 children, all in one day. (Job 1:13-19) Job asked the why question. “What have I done to You? Have I sinned? Why have you set me as Your target? (Job 7:20)

Job never received an answer to his why questions but he came to realize it is better to know God than to know the answers (Job 42:1-6). Job had tremendous faith. In the midst of suffering he trusted God. He recognized that when everything in this life was gone, God was all he really had.

Joseph, another Old Testament protégé, probably had some why question when he landed in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was stranded, abandoned, and forgotten with no one to help him. But, “The Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor.” (Gen. 39:21) In prison, whatever Joseph did, “The Lord made it prosper” (Gen. 39:23). Yet despite God’s presence and blessings, Joseph remained incarcerated for many years.

The road we travel is loaded with troubles, but God is there in the midst of it all, plotting the course and managing the troubles with far reaching purposes for good and the glory of Jesus Christ. We may not understand God’s purposes in the trials we experience, but we can trust the heart of the One who understands because we know He loves us: “For neither death nor life nor things present nor things to come (will ever) separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” (Rom. 8:38-39)

In all our trials God promises to bring something good out of them, even in our darkest moments. (James 1:2-4) One way this takes place is when we share the comfort He offers us with those who are now going through trials: “As you are partakers of the suffering so also you will partake of the consolation.” (2 Cor. 1:7)

God comforts us so that we can comfort others. We honor Him when we pass His comfort on to others. When we love Christ we love others.

While I was in Disciplinary Confinement (DC), I received a letter from a lady who wrote that she collected my stories and used them for her ministry of comfort to the women she visited in the County Jail where she lived. She will never know how much her letter meant to me. God was using my stories to comfort others, “with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” (2 Cor. 1:4) I came to realize what Job and Joseph finally came to understand that God was using their trials for His purposes.

Joseph was released from prison to become second-in-command over all of Egypt next to Pharaoh. God used the knowledge from years in prison to help him oversee all that he was in charge of. “The Lord was with Joseph;” it reminds me that the Lord is always with me wherever I go and because of that I have nothing to fear.

Job and Joseph were blessed at the end of their lives in unbelievable ways and they realized the answers to the why questions. God let them go through the trials to be an example to all of us. In the end Job received back double for everything he lost. (Job 42 & Gen. 50)

Alone in my cell in DC I prayed and thanked God for showing me why I was there. I even wrote a song that I sang to God every day and night over and over again. I sent a copy to Tish, the lady with the jail ministry. She typed it up and gave copies to the girls. I prayed it would comfort them as it did for me.