Be careful on how you respond people

 

Recently I saw a post on a Facebook group. The owner of the post was trying to answer a sensitive query that why God doesn’t answer prayer and let people die. The question is often embedded in mourning mind and haunts the victims that why God doesn’t answer the prayer of well being for the sick and let them die. The answer on the post was straightforward dealing with scientific premise such as eco-system, maintenance of population balance and so on. Seriously, I thought what kind of answer was that?

The question is very serious and sensitive but the questioner isn’t demanding any scientific answer! When we go to funeral and mourning family think of an immortal life, do we teach them how the body dies in light of science? Absolutely no! They are thinking on a philosophical level about meaning of life, purpose of life and why death is always winning life. They aren’t seeking any scientific answer at all.

There are many cases where people pray a lot for well-being of sick ones and yet they die leaving behind deep questions about life. Many believers backslide seeing their prayer not answered. They aren’t asking about ecosystem or population maintenance. They have a philosophical query. Simply saying that if people wouldn’t die then there would be over-population and results in chaotic environment is entirely beyond the scope of the question! Everyone knows about ecosystem. Everyone knows they need to die one day. Everyone knows life is struggle and troublesome journey. But they are trying to seek certain answer on how human life works and how God relates himself to us. How much it hurts when we pray for sick ones a lot but ultimately, they pass away? We obviously ask question to God why he didn’t save them. Does this mean we are praying that people shall never die? Not at all! Sometimes, our naïve answer hurts the questioner more than their situation! Our motive might be good but there is a discipline of how we understand the question and how we are ought to address! People have more philosophical queries than scientific when it comes about life and struggle, they always face.

One of the many valid ways to respond can be like, in 2 Sam. 12:15-31, it seems perplexing when David was mourning to God while baby was alive but he moved on normally when the baby died. This shows his understanding of God's character. God is living and active to show his mercy but he is also free to act as he thinks what is best. After baby died, David stopped praying and fasting. Sometimes it seems right to accept the situation even when prayer isn't answered. We just need to trust God who is sovereign in our life. He is trustworthy enough to know what he is doing. Lord is to be trusted even if our prayer isn't answered and we find difficult to understand the situation.

My aim is not to answer the query but to suggest that sometimes the way we answer people, it might hurt them more than their situation. We almost tend to forget the nature of situation and the context. We must watch our conduct and response towards people. We might be thinking we are answering their query, but we are indeed giving crazy responses that make people get mad at us. We must always be careful about how people are asking the questions.

Everyone of us have struggle and a hope in our life. But not everything fulfils as we expect, as we dream and as we pray. We then have a theological issue with our life and God’s conduct in our life. Another example is that when birthday comes, we don’t ever say to the person that he is growing older and that’s a sad thing but we rejoice and give them best wishes for his remaining journey of life. When a student is worried about exams, it isn’t wise to tell him that exams comes and goes, learn to enjoy life buddy! We don’t have idea how much such words can lead the student to chaotic destination. We need to understand the context and the situation so that we can give a better counselling. Our tiny slippage in the way responding to others can lead to greater disaster!

Hence, let us learn that questions surrounding life isn’t just about reality but many times philosophical and theological. We need to be careful while responding others even though our motive might be good. How it feels when we are in that situation and we get such naïve response?  

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