Muddy Water Questions

As a Bible teacher it can be a scary thing to allow your students to ask questions during the class.  Many teachers fear not knowing the answer when put on the spot to answer a difficult question publicly.  Last Sunday as I was wrapping up my lesson, one of my precious students asked me a question concerning a difficult and sometimes controversial scripture.  Feeling the pressure to come up with an answer I struggled as I suggested a possible answer, yet I was unable to give one that satisfied her thirst to know more. After class she approached me and asked me to pray for her that the Lord would teach her and show her the answer.  I immediately thought of Ephesians 1:17, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” I cannot stop thinking about the question she asked and her desperation to find the answer.  This week I was determined to listen to the Lord as I searched His Word to find the answer.   He spoke to me a one word answer, “faith.”  He keeps whispering in my ear, “faith.”

Have you ever stood in a puddle of water after a rainstorm?  The rain falling seems so clear, yet when it collects in the cracks and crevices of the ground little pools of muddy water form.  As we walk through the puddles the water mixes further with the dirt of the ground and even muddier water forms. Recently on Face book I saw a picture of my friends adorable Labradoodle after a romp in a pasture full of mud puddles.  He was such a muddy mess he was almost unrecognizable!  If you step in a puddle of muddy water you can no longer see your feet, however you know they are there.  That is the visual the Lord gave me as I was thinking of my student searching for the answer to her question.  The answer seems to be at the bottom of a pool of muddy water.  The more I look for the answer to her question the muddier the water gets!

We have so many questions: When, where, what, why and how seem to be the five most used words in all of life!  We ask, “When will I ever get married or have a baby?”  “Where should I live?”  “What should I do?”  “Why did this horrible thing have to happen to me and why now?”  “How will I ever be able to forgive her?”  The answer comes . . . “faith.” 

Many times we ask about the past and ponder why things happened or what we could have done differently.  Isaiah 43:18 contains an answer, “ Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. Behold, I will do something new.  Now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”  We often keep looking back to find the answer that is right in front of us, we need only to have an expectant faith as we watch for God’s hand at work.  The Apostle Paul, a great teacher and preacher was asked, “What must I do to be saved?”  He answered, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:30) Jesus was asked the question, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?”  Jesus answered, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”  Jesus has the answer to any question you have today and He is the answer to any question you will ever have!

Late last night I received some devastating news concerning a friend and the first thing that came to my mind was the question of “Why Lord?”  He quietly whispered, “faith.”  So as this devastating news lingers in my mind, I am clinging to my faith in a God who knows all, sees all, hears all, and will work all things out according to His good purpose.  I must choose to first acknowledge and accept the reality that I may never know the answer to my students “what about them?” question or my own question of “why?” this morning. For the Sovereign Lord’s ways and His knowledge are beyond figuring out.  Secondly, I can rest in the knowledge that from Him and through Him and to Him are all things! He has it all under His control! (Romans 11:33-36)  Finally, I choose to believe and have faith in my God who poured out His love when He sent His only perfect Son to take on all of my sin and shame and die in my place the death I deserved, so that I could live eternally in His presence and experience a peace that goes beyond my understanding. 

Today I pray that you will choose to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, who will secure for you an eternity of peace with Him and that you will trust Him for the answer to every muddy water question you may ask.  

Trust Him as the Answer,
Nancy