Recently I saw a post on a Facebook
group. The owner of the post was trying to answer a sensitive query that why
God doesn’t answer prayer and let people die. The question is often embedded in
mourning mind and haunts the victims that why God doesn’t answer the prayer of
well being for the sick and let them die. The answer on the post was straightforward
dealing with scientific premise such as eco-system, maintenance of population
balance and so on. Seriously, I thought what kind of answer was that?
The question is very serious and
sensitive but the questioner isn’t demanding any scientific answer! When we go
to funeral and mourning family think of an immortal life, do we teach them how
the body dies in light of science? Absolutely no! They are thinking on a
philosophical level about meaning of life, purpose of life and why death is
always winning life. They aren’t seeking any scientific answer at all.
There are many cases where people
pray a lot for well-being of sick ones and yet they die leaving behind deep
questions about life. Many believers backslide seeing their prayer not
answered. They aren’t asking about ecosystem or population maintenance. They
have a philosophical query. Simply saying that if people wouldn’t die then
there would be over-population and results in chaotic environment is entirely
beyond the scope of the question! Everyone knows about ecosystem. Everyone
knows they need to die one day. Everyone knows life is struggle and troublesome
journey. But they are trying to seek certain answer on how human life works and
how God relates himself to us. How much it hurts when we pray for sick ones a
lot but ultimately, they pass away? We obviously ask question to God why he didn’t
save them. Does this mean we are praying that people shall never die? Not at
all! Sometimes, our naïve answer hurts the questioner more than their
situation! Our motive might be good but there is a discipline of how we
understand the question and how we are ought to address! People have more
philosophical queries than scientific when it comes about life and struggle,
they always face.
One of the many valid ways to
respond can be like, in 2 Sam. 12:15-31, it seems perplexing when David was
mourning to God while baby was alive but he moved on normally when the baby
died. This shows his understanding of God's character. God is living and active
to show his mercy but he is also free to act as he thinks what is best. After
baby died, David stopped praying and fasting. Sometimes it seems right to
accept the situation even when prayer isn't answered. We just need to trust God
who is sovereign in our life. He is trustworthy enough to know what he is
doing. Lord is to be trusted even if our prayer isn't answered and we find
difficult to understand the situation.
My aim is not to answer the query
but to suggest that sometimes the way we answer people, it might hurt them more
than their situation. We almost tend to forget the nature of situation and the
context. We must watch our conduct and response towards people. We might be
thinking we are answering their query, but we are indeed giving crazy responses
that make people get mad at us. We must always be careful about how people are
asking the questions.
Everyone of us have struggle and a
hope in our life. But not everything fulfils as we expect, as we dream and as
we pray. We then have a theological issue with our life and God’s conduct in
our life. Another example is that when birthday comes, we don’t ever say to the
person that he is growing older and that’s a sad thing but we rejoice and give
them best wishes for his remaining journey of life. When a student is worried
about exams, it isn’t wise to tell him that exams comes and goes, learn to
enjoy life buddy! We don’t have idea how much such words can lead the student
to chaotic destination. We need to understand the context and the situation so
that we can give a better counselling. Our tiny slippage in the way responding
to others can lead to greater disaster!
Hence, let us learn that questions
surrounding life isn’t just about reality but many times philosophical and
theological. We need to be careful while responding others even though our
motive might be good. How it feels when we are in that situation and we get
such naïve response?