Shaun Groves
The following is an article (slightly amended here) I originally wrote for CHRISTIAN MUSIC PLANET a few years ago but I thought it might be timely to bring it back out now. I’d say all this differently today but the essence of the essay still holds true for me. I still believe this is the answer we’re all looking for.
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Five thousand men and their families fed. Lazarus called out of his tomb. A sea of lepers touched and made whole. Deaf hear. Blind see. Lame leap. Why?
Five thousand stomachs empty again in a matter of hours. An old man rescued from his grave only to return in a few years. The sick are healed until infection invades another day. Ears and eyes are opened until closed again by age or infirmity. Why? I have to wonder why when the miraculous seems ultimately meaningless.
The bodies of Pharaoh’s great army washed up on the shore of the Red Sea. Sodom and Gomorrah reduced to ashes. Paul shipwrecked, infected and martyred. God’s Son betrayed, belittled and butchered. Why?
Why did soldiers leave their families to fight and never come home when it was their leader and not them who defied God? Why did the innocent die alongside the guilty when entire towns were decimated by the wrath of God? Why would a man give up a life of power and prestige for a destiny of disease and destruction? Why did Jesus obey His Father only to be repaid with crucifixion? Why? I have to wonder why when the penalty and pain seem senseless.
And after wrestling with questions like these for years, I believe I’ve stumbled onto the answer – and it happens to be the answer to everything, the whys of every life.
God’s glory. Glory means the full weight of who God is. It is the complete picture of God: His love, mercy, grace, AND His wrath, judgment and jealousy. It is everything He is, and it is the answer. How so? God is self-centered. God is consumed with His own glory and with making His glory known to us. He wants every creature great and small to recognize all that He is and center themselves around all that He is, to adopt His character as their own. To see the fullness of God – His glory – and become glorious. That’s what God is after. That’s why.
John 6:14 The crowd not only had their bellies filled by the miracle of Jesus, but also realized He was the “Prophet who is to come into the world.”
John 11:45 Lazarus came to life and “many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, put their faith in him.”
John 4:48 Crippled, lame, leprous and blind were healed because Jesus knew the spectators needed to “see miraculous signs and wonders” or they would never “believe” – never know He was God.
The miracles of Jesus were not permanent solutions to temporal problems. They were billboards for God’s glory – evidence of God and glimpses of His character. They were invitations to believe in and worship the God of compassion and wonder. They spread His fame from village to village and heart to heart.
Exodus 14:31 Pharaoh’s army was swallowed by the sea and the Jewish nation “feared the Lord and put their trust in Him.”
Psalm 40 Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed; Paul was persecuted; Christ was crucified – so that many would “see and fear” God. So that many would see His power to sustain and strengthen. And so that His name would be “the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the GLORY of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)
What God wants more than my happiness, more than my understanding, more than my way is for me to acknowledge Him – to notice Him – when the blessings AND the tears flow. And to partner with Him, to become a tool, for the purpose of making Him famous.
We were made to know God and continually make Him known. And God is busy dousing us in extravagant kindness and devastating despair, all to broadcast Himself to us and through us. This is the answer that brings meaning and purpose to the blessings and pains of every life. This is God’s plan, His reason. This is the great why we’re looking for. But it only satisfies the questioner who can honestly say along with Isaiah, “Your name and renown are the desire of my soul.” (Isaiah 26:8)
b says:
“God is God, and He knows who He is. God must perpetually exalt Himself in all things. For if God failed to exalt Himself in ever possible way, He would exalt someone else as central, someone or something that was not central at all. That would make God both unwise and unloving-unwise, because it would demostrate that He didn’t know what was best; unloving because He would be allowing our attention and affection to be aimed toward something that was less than the very best. But since God encompasses all wisdom and is the source of pure love, He has no choice but to exalt Himself above all things. If that approach sounds a little arrogant or egocentric, we have to remember who we’re talking about. We’re not talking about little finite creatures like you or me, but abou the God of gods who is before all things . . . when God orchestrates life in such a way as to spotlight His fame, He is being anything but arrogant. He is doing the most loving thing He can do. He is not being egotistical at all, rather He is simply being God.”
from “i am not but i know I AM”
Jonesey says:
Shaun,
Glad you mentioned the MWS lyric that says”and thought of me above all”. As a songwriter maybe you might see a different spin on the song “above all” as a whole. But I not sure what Christ did can be compared to “Like a rose trampled on the ground, You took the fall, and thought of me above all.” Could there be some symbalizism(sp) behind it?
Thanks shaun for your thought, Kind of funny that as I read this blog that I glanced and read the Family Christian Store flyer this month and it says “ Its all about Him”