But WHY?
Quick! What’s your kid’s favorite word… and your most aggravating at the same time?
WHY!
Every parent has been plagued by the incessant nagging of the infinitely curious mind of their child’s unquenchable quest to understand why things are the way they are or could be, or should be, or not… ugh. As agonizing as it may seem at the moment, that compelling desire for ‘why’ in a child’s heart is part of the reason Jesus blessed the young uniquely with this powerful declaration:
But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”
Luke 18:16-17
My opinion is that one of the reasons Jesus declared this truth was because of the compelling ‘why’ that children easily embrace.
We wrongly assume that an inquisitive attitude is an immature affliction as we age into the later stages of life and experience that often deceives us into the hubris of considering ourselves wiser than we ought. Our ‘why’ is very important and powerful. If the journey of life has tried to abscond your desire to know more or convinced you to rid yourself of the ‘immaturity’ of curiosity I want to exhort you to regain that potential.
One of the qualifying characteristics of the disciples was their voracious appetite for learning more. It had to be in them to spend 10,000+ hours with a person known as ‘Rabbi’, ‘Teacher’, ‘Master’, and ‘Shepherd’.
- Matthew 19:27-30 (ESV) – After the disciples had witnessed Jesus’ interaction with a rich young man who asked how to inherit eternal life, Peter asked, “See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?” Jesus responds by explaining that there will be great rewards in heaven for those who have left everything to follow him.
- Mark 4:10-13 (ESV) – Jesus was teaching in parables, and after the crowds had dispersed, his disciples asked him why he spoke to them in parables. Jesus explains that he uses parables to reveal the mysteries of the kingdom of God to those who are ready to understand, but to others, it is a veil that remains unopened.
- Luke 10:25-37 (ESV) – A lawyer asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus responds by asking the lawyer what is written in the law. The lawyer answers, and Jesus affirms his answer, then tells the parable of the Good Samaritan to illustrate the importance of showing mercy and love to others.
- John 13:36-38 (ESV) – Peter asks Jesus why he cannot follow Him now. Jesus responds by prophesying that Peter will deny him three times before the rooster crows the next morning. (To which Peter denies… he asked questions and did not like the answers. It is not just a Peter thing, Beloved… we all have this propensity.)
I walked into an auto parts store the other day in search of a replacement oil pan plug for my pickup. It developed a leak after I serviced it a few days before. The leak was caused by a small piece of carbon getting wedged against the very sensitive seal of the O-ring on the plastic oil pan plug. Hang with me here, Beloved, this is not a mechanics class. My (whiney) exasperation in the schedule intrusion this caused revolves around the fact that in years past, that oil plug would have been made from hardened steel with a solid metal gasket. That steel would have easily ground that little particle into a non-event. The modern engineers decided they would ‘update’ that engineering with ridiculously fragile plastic and rubber. I cannot help but have an internal scream of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!”
The parts counter fella must have read my exasperated facial language upon my arrival and gave me one of those guy-to-guy empathetic cliche statements… “So, what did the engineers do to you?” I responded with, “How did you know I was angry at the design flaws of the Ford Motor Co?” After our friendly bantering, I left with my $10 new piece of ridiculous plastic and my nagging mentality of ‘why?’
Every mechanic has this thought under a vehicle every day, ‘why?’ Why would they jam the starter into the subframe so it takes six hours to replace it knowing that it was literally built to wear out eventually? And a thousand other similar questions that start with ‘why.’ But, what we do not do as often or as well is turn that ‘why’ toward something more valuable, like our own identity and behavior.
In his book, Battles Men Face, my friend, Dr. Gregory Jantz, states the problem this way:
There are WHATs to your behavior and there are WHYs to your behavior. The WHATs can be easier to spot, but it is the WHYs that fuel the WHATs. If you don’t tackle them both, you’re not going to get to the core of the behavior. A job half done is a job undone; that’s just the way it is. Getting to know yourself better, to understand why you do what you do, is a valuable endeavor…
There is great value in experiential learning. I would argue, however, that there is nothing wrong with an intentional, directed inner exploration, and in fact it can be quite valuable. This isn’t meant as an endless journey without a destination, but a targeted, plotted path to reach a specific goal of awareness so you can be better and stronger as a man. With awareness comes power to change. With awareness comes power to accomplish the personal tasks you set for yourself.
The answer to this nagging ‘why’ is generally found in two thoughts:
- The reality of who you are.
- The reality of who you are not.
Who are you?
This should be simple, but our information overload society has complicated this to the max. If you are a ‘normal’ American, you have too many and too loud types of voices making this question something they feel obligated to answer for you.
- Magazine covers telling you what to look like
- Hollywood telling you what to act like
- Propagandistic media telling you what is true
- Socialized education tells you how to think
- Social influencers redefining your morality
- Government telling you what your priorities are
- The Flesh making millions of self-centered demands for you to conform to
The chaotic confusion starts to stack up like pancakes on a fat kid’s plate. The noise is so deafening that our children do not even know what gender they are, or they are supposed to be, or they are told to be, or they should be, or they were wrongly created to be. It is no wonder that the majority of society is like a lemming with their nose shoved up to the tail of the lemming in front of them hoping that they are headed the right way.
Here is what the Apostle Paul said after He had a radical encounter with Jesus Who specifically TOLD him who he was:
“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not in vain. No, I worked harder than all of them— yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”
1 Corinthians 15:10
Paul had his ‘who’ and his ‘why’ deeply rooted in that creative grace of God, Who met him on the road to Damascus. Jesus is no ‘respecter of persons,’ therefore He will show you your ‘who’ and ‘why’ if you so desire. Go read Paul’s conversion experience (Acts 9:1-19) and you will see the clarity of Jesus, The Creator, telling Saul (Paul) what his created purpose is (verses 15-16). In this above reference, we see that Paul recognized his identity and purpose were singularly a derivative of the grace of God.
This is such a vast subject and deep well that I hesitate to even try to unpack it. I will attempt to just skim the surface, but I would exhort you to do a deep dive in your own devotionals about the supernaturally transformative ability of the grace of God.
Grace is a teacher. Jesus was the ‘fulness of grace and truth’ (John 1:16-17) and so it is no wonder that He was THE Great Teacher. Grace, our teacher, is highlighted in Paul’s epistle to Titus:
“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age” (verses 11-12)
Paul was trained by the Grace of God to: (1) renounce ungodliness, (2) renounce worldly passions, (3) live self-controlled, (4) live upright, and (5) live godly. Paul became these things with their connected behaviors because this grace was allowed to do in his life what it came to do.
Back in 1 Corinthians 15:10, Paul also said that ‘I worked harder than all of them,’ denoting his intensity and desire to transform his life by this grace. This is what we talk about in the Beloved culture as ‘transformation,’ which is the process of becoming conformed to the image of Christ (Christoformity). This is an outworking of our commitment to willingly allow grace to have its way and will in our lives. Grace tells you and forms you into ‘who you are.’
Next, “Who you are not.”
This is as equally challenging as the first question. Who you have thought you to be and the behaviors associated with that ‘who’ have constructed you over your lifetime. Remember that fruit comes from root, and never the other way around. Christianity is not about behavior modification, it is about heart transformation. A simple way to know who you are not is to recognize who you were before the Cross. That person with their brokenness, issues, lusts, addictions, emotions, traumas, and baggage is NOT who you ARE… it is who you WERE.
Ephesians 2:10: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Colossians 2:9-10: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity dwells in bodily form. And you have been made complete in Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”
YOU are COMPLETE in HIM. Not in something or someone else. It is HIM that you ARE and the old you that you are NOT.
Verse 11: “In Him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of your sinful nature, with the circumcision performed by Christ and not by human hands.”
Not by human hands… yours or mine, but by the grace that is in HIM.
Oh, Beloved, I could do this all day!
Who you are and who you are not will answer that massive question I introduced at the beginning of ‘why?’ Right now your ‘why’ is being driven by your ‘who’. Your Engineer made you the right way in the New Birth, do not try to change it back with a ridiculous plastic part because some other engineer had a synapse misfire. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! And you ain’t broke!
It is this grace race of people who will be leading this Great Awakening. We are that remnant race, Beloved.
I love you, in the grace of God!
Steve
