Why?

 

Why? This is a question that we hear from children a lot. It is a question that, if I am honest, is a question that I voice to God a lot. I don’t ask it in a demanding or disrespectful way but there are times I just don’t understand.

 

In John 9:2 the disciples ask Jesus a question. They ask who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? They were really asking why is this man blind.

 

Jesus answers in verse 3. He says, “It was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

 

Jesus is saying the man’s blindness is not the result of anyone’s sin but so that God’s power might be displayed.

 

Isaiah 55:8-9

For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.

 

The reason we don’t always understand God and ask why is because God’s ways are not like our ways. God doesn’t always do it in the way that we would do it. The reason is that God does not think the way we think. God is infinite and we are finite. God’s thoughts are thus infinite.

 

God knows all and is not bound by time or space. We don’t know all and are bound by time and space. That makes God’s ways and thoughts higher than ours.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that God is infinite and we are not, and that makes God’s ways and thoughts higher than ours.

 

That then leads to what naturally flows from that truth. It is found in Isaiah 55:10-11.

 

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

 

God’s word is like rain and snow that come and water the earth and make things grow and produce food for people, which is the purpose of the rain and snow. God’s word always fulfills the purpose for which He gives it.

 

It produces:

Spiritual Growth

Hope

Faith

Encouragement

Confrontation

Conviction

Truth

Salvation

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God’s word through the power of the Holy Spirit to impact and transform our lives.

 

God’s word can do that because of who God is:

All-Powerful

All-Knowing

Ever-Present

Infinite

Not Being Bound by Time and Space

 

The result of God being higher than us and His word being able to accomplish what God wants is found in Isaiah 55:12

 

For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth in singing, that all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 

Nature will celebrate because God the Creator’s word is accomplishing His desire for all of nature.

 

God’s people will experience joy and peace.

 

God’s will is to redeem all creation, including humans. Then creation will experience celebration and God’s people will experience joy and live in[JB1]  peace.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is, by knowing God as our answer to why, to experience joy and live in peace. 

 

The answer, when we ask God why, is God Himself and the truth He reveals in His word. We have to believe and obey.

 

God as Our Answer in Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                              Joe

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 [JB1]