Questions that wont go away

Jeremiah 12:1-14:10
1 Thessalonians 1:1-2:8
Psalm 79:1-13
Proverbs 24:30-34


The Guardian columnist Jon Ronson wrote this in an article about his experience of going on an Alpha Course.



"Then it's on to the small group. I am in Nicky's group: typically, it consists of around 10 agnostics, some from the City, some from the dot.com world, some professional sportspeople, strangers gathered together in a small room in the basement. We sit in a circle. I wonder what will happen to us in the weeks ahead. For now, we verbalise our doubts. We gang up on Nicky and his helpers: his wife, Pippa, an investment banker called James and his doctor wife, Julia, all ex-agnostics who found Christ on Alpha. We ask them antagonistic questions. "If there's a God, why is there so much suffering?" And: "What about those people who have never heard of Jesus? Are you saying that all other religions are damned?"


Nicky just smiles and says, "What do the other people here think?"  At the end of the night, Nicky hands out some pamphlets he's written called (such is the predictability of agnostics) Why Does God Allow Suffering? (answer: nobody really knows) and What About Other Religions?"


Don't worry Jon, it's not just Agnostics who are predictable.  We all have the same sorts of questions and frankly we always have had them.  The start of the Jeremiah passage makes this clear.


     Lord, you always give me justice
      when I bring a case before you.
   So let me bring you this complaint:
   Why are the wicked so prosperous?
      Why are evil people so happy?


Straight to the point from Jeremiah there.  Some questions never go away.  God gives Jeremiah something of an answer by later turning the question back round on him later and saying, "What are you and all the so-called good people of Judah doing about it?" but even then there's not really a complete answer.  Most of the time when this question is asked in the Bible the people who ask it do not get a straightforward, reasoned out answer in five simple points but what they do  get is either contentment that it will work out in the end, the strength to keep on fighting against the wicked or the assurance that God is with them in all that they are going through.


Maybe that's all that we need, or maybe that's really what we are looking for, the reassurance that God sees and knows what is happening.


God, evil and selfish people always seem to get the big jobs and drive the big cars, do you see it all?  Are you doing anything about it?  A simple yes would suffice...