Do you ever find yourself asking questions that leave you with more questions than answers? Well, I’ve been asking questions for as long as I can remember and have often found my questions lead to more questions that sometimes yield answers but almost always render more questions.

Life is filled with events that leave you wondering why. Kids start asking why at a young age. Why do I have to clean my room? Why do I have to do that? The list goes on and on. Adults, however, don’t outgrow asking why. Why did he get cancer? Why was she killed in a car accident? Why can’t I find a job? These are only a few of the difficult questions that may arise.

I’m not here to tell I have the answers to all the why questions, but I do want to encourage you that you can live in a place of hope rather than despair even when your whys don’t get answered.

As I referenced in my last post, I’ve I had a lot of surgeries. I’ve also had a few curveballs thrown that caught me off guard and left me wondering why I couldn’t figure things out. Why didn’t I see that coming? Sometimes it left me feeling like a failure. Other times I thought I was in the zone and had life figured out and then I swung and looked like a fool when I was thrown a change up came but swung as if it was a fastball.

The good thing is I learned humility when I swung and missed or when I tripped and fell when I was trying to go from 1s to 2nd base. If we never make mistakes, how could we learn and grow without becoming prideful? If I had the answer to every question I would be God. I don’t want the responsibilities of God! However, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep growing in knowledge, truth, and love.

When an event in life leaves you asking why, I challenge you to ask yourself different questions. What can I learn from this? What emotion am I feeling? When did I first start feeling this way? Do I need to take a step back? Do I need to grieve? How can I be an encouragement to others? These are some questions that could lead to others, but will hopefully springboard you into discovering a few answers. When you start looking at how you can grow and even help others, it tends to to take the focus off the pain of the situation and center it on a positive outcome rather than a negative.

One thing that helps me when I find myself swirling in a sea full of whys, is stopping and asking myself one simple why question, “Why are these questions important to me?” Sometimes this shows me I’m frustrated with my own limitations. Other times it has shown me I’m insecure. Yet other times it doesn’t yield any significant direction. No matter the result of my questions, I find myself praying. “Lord I don’t know why this bothers me so much, but help me rest in your love and peace. Help me show grace to myself and others. Help me keep moving forward whether I know the answers or not.”

Knowing that the Lord has all the answers, takes the burden off of me. It gives me hope to keep going when I don’t have the answers to life’s difficult questions.