"These are questions I must put to (God) for I have no one else to answer them... Do my questions provoke you to smile at me and bid me simply acknowledge you and praise you for what I do know?... Need it concern me if some people cannot understand this? Let them ask what it means, and be glad to ask: but they may content themselves with the question alone. FOR IT IS BETTER FOR THEM TO FIND YOU AND LEAVE THE QUESTION UNANSWERED THAN TO FIND THE ANSWER WITHOUT FINDING YOU" (Augustine: Confessions, 26-27).
Here are the answers to many of the questions submitted. The answers come from faculty and professors.
That is a question that many of us struggle with. What would it take to convince me that it is God who is speaking? I don’t know what it would take. There are enough instances in scripture that remind us that even if God spoke clearly, we would struggle: Moses (burning bush), Gideon (fleece), Samuel, Elijah (Mount Sinai), John the Baptist (are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else—John had an undeniable call).
We believe we would feel more secure if we heard the undeniable voice of God, although we might not like what we hear.
I believe this is something we can ask God for but at the same time we should recognize that God could choose to communicate to us in a variety of ways. God often speaks to us in ways that are consistent with our personality. One of the responses that the Church has taken over the years is to encourage people to practice spiritual disciplines. We have to intentionally engage in practices that focus our attention away from ourselves and towards God.
It is a lifelong journey for each of us to learn to tune our ears to the voice of God. We can start with the basis that God is speaking and we need to ask Him to help us listen.
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Why did God make me always have to be the strong one?
It would be good to have more context, but my initial reaction is this question comes from the thought that God won’t give us more than we can handle. It is a phrase we use often in Christian circles but it doesn’t have scriptural basis. The closest verse to this is 1 Corinthians 10:13 which speaks of God not letting us being tempted beyond what we can bear but will provide a way out.
I don’t think God takes pleasure in us facing difficulties or that God decides what tragedies to give us based upon our relative strength. God’s desire is for us to be like Him. Sometimes that takes us through difficulty. Sometimes our difficulty occurs simply because there is sin in the world. We don’t escape difficulties.
There is no simple answer to why tragedies happen to us but we trust that God can take the difficulties and redeem them for His purpose.
