The “How” Without the “Why”
I’ve always been cursed with a chronic question. As a child, I continually asked my father and mother, “Why do I have to go to bed at an early hour?” “Why must I brush my teeth?” “Why do I have to eat these tasteless green beans?” I’ve asked the question “Why?” for a long time. I cannot imagine how sanctifying this must have been for my parents! As a pimpled-faced teenager, my craving to know the reasons behind what I was wondering only intensified: “Why must I have a curfew?” “Why can’t I have more freedoms?” “Why should I get a summer job?”
Dr. Alan Greene, a pediatrician and author, explains a parent’s challenge with the “Why” question: “Often we don’t know the real answers to the innocent questions they ask, but even when we do, our answers don’t slow the pace of their relentless questions.” Dr. Greene thinks we misunderstand the child’s language. He goes on to say that, we “think that when they ask ‘Why?’ they mean the same thing we mean when we ask” that question. “Our cause-and-effect answers miss the mark, and so they fail to satisfy.”
We Never Graduate From the Question
There’s something very insightful about that last line, “Our cause-and-effect answers miss the mark, and so they fail to satisfy.” I’m not sure we ever graduate from asking why things are the way that they are. Even as adults, there is something within us that desires to know the motivation, purpose, and truth behind what we observe.
Dr. Greene explains a parent’s frustration when asked, “Why?” boils down to not knowing the actual answer to the child’s inquiry. Could it be with the “Why” of Christianity we often feel a colossal tension between the need to ask “Why?” and the frustration of not knowing the answer?
It’s almost like our inner child is pestering the inner parent in us with “Why?” and our inner parent just succumbs to defeat for not knowing how to respond to the question.
Understanding the “Why” for the Christian Life
This can be a significant problem for Christians. The problem exists when men and women know and try to live out the “How” without the “Why.” This was my struggle as a Christian for many years.
Immediately after placing my trust in Christ, I was taught about praying, reading my Bible, sharing my faith, having excellent character, and making wise decisions. Each of these are rightful activities of the Christian life. What became problematic for me was my possessing a clear understanding of the “How” of Christianity, without really grasping the “Why” yet.
What then is the purpose behind the Christian life? Is the purpose to earn God’s love and approval? Is the purpose to be a good person and treat others well? Is the purpose to not disappoint your Christian parents? I don’t believe so.
Paul helps us answer this question in Philippians 1:27, “Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.” According to the Apostle Paul, the purpose behind a believer’s life is the gospel. It’s a call to allow the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ to sink down in you to the degree that the gospel recolors your world, transforms your views, and reshapes your motivations. God has designed for the gospel to be the sufficient reason for our lives because it is the power of God in our lives (Rom. 1:16). An actual power that’s able to redeem, reconcile, adopt, and transform!
When you know the gospel as the driving-purpose of the Christian life, then the means of living the Christian life becomes more obvious and natural. Far too many Christians attempt to manufacture Christian behavior through their own effort—this leads to unmet expectations and endless frustrations. This reality emphasizes the importance for us to understand the gospel as our “Why” and how it practically changes our lives.
Gospel Motivation for How the Church Lives
The gospel acting as the primary motivation behind how we live is a constant theme throughout the New Testament. Paul writes to the church in Ephesus, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph. 5:1-2). The book of Ephesians is concerned with who the church is now—because of the gospel—in Christ. One can sense Paul’s passionate plea that an experience of being loved by God through the gospel is unparalleled.
Christ’s love compels our hearts so much that we can no longer consider another love to match what Christ has wrapped us in. Paul’s point is simple; the only way we can truly love people in relationship must come from the compelling love of Christ for you.
Elsewhere, the gospel acting as the primary motivation behind how we live is thematic in the New Testament. When challenging the Corinthian church towards a life of generosity, Paul doesn’t seek to provoke generosity by commanding or guilting. Instead, Paul allows the generosity Christ has poured out through the gospel to be the driving force of the church’s generous lifestyles because at the center of Christianity is an act of uncommon generosity.
In fact, Paul proclaims, “I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Cor. 8:8-9). This means that our grasping of Jesus’s radical generosity will parallel the amount of generosity evidenced in our lives.
Of course, a life of love and generosity are not the only the examples of the New Testaments emphasis on the gospel serving as the “Why” the Christian life. The list continues as the gospel motivates extending forgiveness, serving others, seeking reconciliation, enduring in patience, having a selfless marriage, just to name a few.
Purpose for Dark Days
When I was a senior in high school, I experienced a pain unlike any pain I’ve ever known. Just four days before my high school graduation, my father passed away from an infection in his brain. My pain and sorrow led me to the common question, “God, why would you allow this to happen to our family?” Throughout the past twenty-five years, God has never really answered my question of “Why, Lord?”
It has been a quarter of a century of missing my dad. Missing conversations over Oklahoma Sooners Football. Feeling his absence in our family vacation photo with my mom, my sister and her family, and my family. Wishing that he could have met my wife, Kara, and our three boys.
Some days of living in a broken world just feel dark. Far too often we experience the reality of pain. Sorrow, difficulty, and suffering all appear inescapable. Yet knowing your why plays a vital role in our days of darkness (2 Cor. 4:8-10; 1 Peter 5:10). Just to clarify, I’m not contending that God always provides us with the exact “Why” behind each experience of suffering in our lives. But there is comfort provided to us in our pain.
Sometimes, God shows us the reason he has walked us through pain and difficulty, and sometimes God—in his infinite wisdom—withholds that information. His ways are higher than ours (Isa. 55:8-9). However, God has provided followers of Christ with a greater reason that supplies comfort and perspective in times of darkness.
In my days of sorrow, the gospel has been the “Why” to provide comfort and to bring perspective. Comfort by knowing Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection assures that nothing can separate me from the covenant he has made with us (Rom. 8). The perspective of knowing these troubling moments of my soul are not the end. For one day Christ will fully restore all that was broken by the fall and sorrow will have no presence or future.
Purpose for Your Life
I often wonder if our Christian lives can easily be explained through being nice, morally decent, or ascribing to a faith out of family tradition? Is the world really impressed by this explanation of our lives? In his book Gospel Fluency, Jeff Vanderstelt asks a significant question, “I wonder how often our good, moral lives, disconnected from any gospel explanation, convince people they don’t need Jesus?”
When considering your life, what is the “Why” that explains your life? It’s fascinating to meet a gospel-transformed person who’s different from the spiritually-numb family they grew up in. What about a gospel-transformed person who now, as a young adult, differs from the spiritually-devoid peer group they were so engaged with in high school? Or what about the gospel-transformed person, who once journeyed the way of the prodigal, giving their life to reckless living and self-indulgence, but now has been found and saved by grace? What on earth explains such transformation? The gospel is the only explanation for all of these!
In fact, the gospel is the most profound and sufficient “Why” that your life could ever have.
Danny Loeffelholz lives in Tyler, Texas with his wife Kara and their three sons. He has a PhD. in expository preaching and pulpit communication from Trinity Theological Seminary. Danny is a pastor at Grace Community Church (Tyler, TX), and previously served on staffs at Pine Cove Camps (Tyler, TX) and Grace Community Church (Bartlesville, OK). You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter (@dannyl76).