One of the first sentences, almost all of us utter in life, ends with an exclamation mark: “That’s not fair!” We have a deeply engrained sense of fairness, and object when we sense unfairness—especially when we see ourselves on the short end of the stick. What we all can see is that this world is filled with unfairness, and it bothers us. It bothers us, not just because unfairness seems unfortunate, but because it strikes us as morally wrong. And so, we ask, “Where is God?”

We are far from the first to ask. Abraham questioned and then bartered with God about the LORD’s plan to destroy Sodom. Asking, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25). The psalmist of Psalm 73, confesses that he nearly lost his faith, “when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” The prophet, Habakkuk, begins his book with these questions to the God he serves:

How long, Lord, must I call for help,
    but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
    but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
    Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
    there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
    and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
    so that justice is perverted. (Habakkuk 1:2-4, NIV)

Then, a few verses later, he asks:

Why then do you tolerate the treacherous?
Why are you silent while the wicked
swallow up those more righteous than themselves? (Habakkuk 1:13b, NIV)

No one is bolder in questioning God than Habakkuk’s contemporary, Jeremiah, and few suffered more than he.

It is clear, since Jeremiah alludes to, and even quotes Psalm 1, that he knew and was nurtured on this statement of Israel’s wisdom.

1 Blessed is the one
    who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
    or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,
    and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
    which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
    whatever they do prospers.

4 Not so the wicked!
    They are like chaff
    that the wind blows away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
    nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. (Psalm 1:1-6, NIV)

This Psalm is a clear statement of one aspect of Israel’s wisdom, that I have condensed to “Do good, Get good.” But we all know, and have experienced, that this is not absolute in this unfair world. Doing good, in fact, doing God’s express will, did not give Jeremiah a prospering reward, but brought him persecution and suffering. In passages that we call, the Confessions of Jeremiah, the prophet is willing to raise what he sees as contradictions to Psalm 1.

You are always righteous, Lord,
    when I bring a case before you.
Yet I would speak with you about your justice:
    Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
    Why do all the faithless live at ease?
2 You have planted them, and they have taken root;
    they grow and bear fruit.
You are always on their lips
    but far from their hearts. (Jeremiah 12:1-2, NIV)

Jeremiah’s experience of his world’s unfairness finally brings his most bitter complaint.

15 …You are long-suffering—do not take me away;
    think of how I suffer reproach for your sake.
16 When your words came, I ate them;
    they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
    Lord God Almighty.
17 I never sat in the company of revelers,
    never made merry with them;
I sat alone because your hand was on me
    and you had filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain unending
    and my wound grievous and incurable?
You are to me like a deceptive brook,
    like a spring that fails. (Jeremiah 15:15b-18, NIV)

Although these brazen words crossed the line (see 15:19), they were uttered because Jeremiah had faith, not because he lost faith in the LORD. In chapter 17, Jeremiah will reaffirm Psalm 1, but his path to that reaffirmation was not easy. Faith led him through.

All of these questioners, questioned from faith. We almost see faith as Abraham’s last name, and he questioned God. We will come to the book of Job in a later blog, but we see in this inspired, magnificent drama, the encouragement to pursue that faith-guided journey, and to come to the Creator with all our hard questions.

One last thought about this kind of faith. It takes God seriously and will not let go of Him. Faith keeps the conversation of prayer ongoing, in active listening for His voice. As we will see, faith doesn’t always lead us to satisfactory, intellectually logical answers, but to God, Himself.

The next blog: “Grappling to Understand.”