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Carolyn Arends suggests in a gentle song on her latest CD that the questions people ask in private often carry more meaning than their plain assertions. Those questions deserve serious attention, because they reveal the cry of the human heart.
What about when those private questions are broadcast over the radio? Rock stars sometimes ask questions about God in front of millions of listeners. Sometimes they ask whether God really has the power to make order out of the chaos in our world. Sometimes they wish for God to come close to them in their troubles. And sometimes they question why they or others suffer.
Do rock stars ask these questions sincerely? Do they ever pose them rhetorically in order to justify their own lifestyle choices? Do they wait for an answer? Are they willing to receive whatever God might say in response?
The words of this song were not originally written by McLachlan, but she has placed them at the start of her Rarities CD and sings them with a bitter edge. She reminds God of people who don't get enough to eat, and of others "fighting in the street".
McLachlan's second question ("Did You make mankind after we made You?") points to a helpful insight. People tend to make gods in their own image--to imagine that God is like them, full of weakness and confusion and maybe even hatred and evil. Sometimes they even assume that they themselves are God, the most important being in the universe. The God revealed in the Bible, however, is far different--absolutely powerful and perfectly good.
"You're always letting us humans down," sings McLachlan. No wonder. The god we make in our own image will always disappoint. It will be too much like us to live up to our trust.
In another song, Bono sings, "God has got His phone off the hook," and asks, "Would He even pick up if He could?" On a third song, he suggests to Jesus that His "hands aren't free" and that He isn't always present when needed.
A similar haunting question about God's nearness comes from British singer Sting on his CD The Soul Cages. He asks--seemingly without warning--
Father, if Jesus exists,
Then how come He never lived here?
"All This Time" is the brightest song on a rather melancholy recording. As usual with Sting, the CD is full of thoughtful lyrics and interesting music. In several songs he is evidently working through the death of his father. He sings about an accident in a shipyard, about final rites for "the old man" and about taking down his father's cross from the wall above an empty bed. Sting's question in the midst of all this is intriguing. It contains the assertion that Jesus "never lived here". What does he mean?
The message of the Bible is precisely that Jesus, the Son of God, became a human being and lived among humanity. Those who knew Him reported, "We saw His glory, the glory which He received as the Father's only Son" (The Gospel According to John, chapter 1, verse 14, The Bible). Christians even today say that they have experienced the presence of Jesus in a very real sense (though not in the physical sense), often at times when they needed Him the most.
O you tireless Watcher!
What have I done to You?
That You make everything I dread
and everything I fear come true?
Here Joni is setting to music the questions a man named Job asked in the section of the Bible named after him.
Then comes a question which was not asked by Job:
What is the reason for Your heavy hand?
Was it the sins of my youth?
Sin (doing wrong things) was not an issue for Job: The Bible says Job was "blameless and upright". Can Joni claim the same? In an interview in Rolling Stone earlier this year, Joni was asked about her early years as a singer: "Were you promiscuous?" Joni answered, "In terms of the times, I guess we all were. It was a hedonistic time. . . ."
Do lifestyle choices have consequences? Joni seems to give an answer in another striking song on the CD, "Sex kills". Is God to blame for suffering which follows wrong choices? Is Joni actually hearing a question which comes from beyond herself?
When we ask questions about God, we often like to be in control of the process. As Lesslie Newbigin writes, "We decide which questions to ask, and these questions necessarily determine the nature of the answers." But what happens when the One about whom we are asking questions suddenly enters the room? We are still free to ask questions, but we must also answer the questions put to us.
When we ask questions about God, do we dare to believe that God can answer us? Is there a willingness to hear the answer when it comes? Is there a readiness to obey if the answer requires change in our lives? Is it possible that some of our questions are just a smokescreen to cover up the fact that we don't want to change but want to continue in the patterns of behaviour that we have previously chosen?
God's answer to our questions may mean a series of tough questions for us. We will not then be in control of the process. It will not be predictable. It will not feel safe. But only then will our deepest questions be satisfied. Finding answers is a matter of knowing God personally.
The questions we ask when nobody's listening often reveal the deepest longings of our hearts. God is not indifferent to our questions. He knows our needs even before we ask. He has the love to listen and the power to answer us.
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