AUGUST 10

Why?

Romans 11:33-34

ON FEBRUARY 15, 1947, the Avianca Airline flight bound for Bogotá, Colombia, crashed clumsily into the 10,500-foot-high towering peak of Mount Tablazo not far from Bogotá, then dropped, a flaming mass of metal, into a ravine far below. A young New Yorker, Glenn Chambers, was one of the victims. He planned to begin a ministry with the Voice of the Andes, a lifelong dream that was suddenly aborted.

Before leaving the Miami airport earlier that day, Chambers hurriedly dashed off a note on a piece of paper he found on the floor of the terminal. That scrap of paper was once a printed piece of advertisement with the single word WHY sprawled across the center. In a hurry, he scribbled his note around that word —oblivious to its presence. He folded the note quickly and stuffed it into an envelope addressed to his mother. But before the delivery of that note, Chambers was killed. When his mother received it after the news of her son’s death, there staring up at her was that haunting question —Why?

Of all questions, why? is the most tormenting. Why? accompanies every tragedy. It falls from the lips of the mother who delivers a stillborn . . . the parent who hears that cancer diagnosis . . . the husband who learns of his wife’s tragic death . . . the close friend of one who commits suicide.

Why? Why me? Why now? Why this? No man-made gauge can measure the shock and horror that strike the nervous system as ill-fated news travels into the human ear. No preparation can fully ready us for such moments. Few thoughts can steady us afterward except perhaps only one.

It’s remarkable how believing one profound statement eases the pain from asking the question Why?

The apostle Paul declared:

How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the LORD’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice?

ROMANS 11:33-34

Mrs. Chambers stopped asking why when she realized the Who behind her loss. He offers you the grace to stop asking too. He is there. He knows your need. You can trust Him. What can you entrust to Him today?