Why do I speed up when we get to a yellow light?

Why do you take the short way home when the long route offers the beautiful view?

Why can’t you find a spouse or have a child?

Why is your marriage is failing?

Why did the chicken cross the road?

So many things and so many reasons I just don’t know.

I don’t know why people die when they’re young
Or before they get to meet their first grandchild.

I don’t know why people stop praying
Stop hoping
Stop trusting
And make so many rules that not even Jesus could have followed them.

I don’t know why there are more fireflies in the country or what their purpose is other than to make kids happy on summer nights.

I don’t know why we fight with the people we love the most

Or why your business isn’t successful

Or why you can’t find a job.

I don’t know why you find jokes funny that I think are stupid

Or why some people are just plain odd.

I simply don’t know.

I don’t know why we’re living in the country in a house that’s not ours
Or why I started blogging when there are days I have nothing to say and the last thing I want to do is write about nothing when I really do have a lot to say.

I don’t know why my son isn’t a better reader
Or why people make such a big deal that their child is
Or why we push our kids to grow up too soon
Only to wish time would stop so they’d be little again.

I don’t know why I ask for things and don’t get them
Or why I get things I don’t ask for.

I don’t know why friends move away
Or why it’s so difficult to make new friends
Or why we don’t see good friends more often
Or why friends are even important.

Don’t we deserve an explanation to at least one Why?

I don’t know if the sun will come out tomorrow
If Jesus will return tomorrow
If the child fighting for his life will live until tomorrow
Or if I’ll continue putting off today what I could do tomorrow.

I don’t know why I write and talk all high-and-mighty when I haven’t even walked over to meet my new neighbors yet. I don’t know.

I don’t know why I am in this appointed place in life, what we’re doing here, or how this is supposed to change my life. I don’t know if I truly hear God telling me something or if it’s me telling myself what I want to hear. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here getting shin splints from walking on raw wooden floors or how living in a cabin is going to be anything more than living in a cabin.

I. Do. Not. Know.

Do you?

I don’t know why I cry for no apparent reason and whether the tears are happy or sad. I don’t know if the people I look up to ever feel the same crazy way I feel and ask the same crazy questions I do.

I don’t know why cancer can’t be cured
Why innocent kids are abused
Why people go hungry
Why people are homeless
Or why more people don’t help the homeless and hungry.

But…

God is faithful. God is stable. God is understanding. God is kind.

And He knows. Yes, God knows everything.

He knows why you are there and I am here. He knows how long you’ll be there and I’ll be here. He may choose to make it clear, He may not.

But ALL things work together for good. And ALL THINGS means ALL THINGS. The things we know, the things we don’t. The good and the bad. The unclear, the clear, the scary, the beautiful, the kind, the mean, the death, the life, the valleys, the mountains, the cabin, the kids, the short and scenic route. All for good…

How do I know this?

Because I trust God.

Come to think about it…that’s about all I do know.