Why do we face one problem after another when we love God and believe in Him? The answer begins with how we were first taught to hold the truth. If a student is given a mathematics problem from his textbook, with the answer printed on the last page and he looks at the answer first and works backwards without following the steps, he arrives at it easily enough — but that shortcut does not last. The moment he faces a real exam or takes up work where no answer is printed anywhere, it is the steps he needs, not the answer. It is the same when a student who copies someone else’s project will not succeed; a student who ventures into the project himself will.
This is precisely our problem as believers born into the faith. We have the answers — verses for healing, verses for deliverance, verses of comfort — and we know them well. But when a real problem comes, we try to solve it by simply reciting the answer instead of working it out with God. This is why new converts often seem more vibrant, more fruitful, and quicker to step into ministry than those of us who grew up with all the right verses memorised. For a new believer, the answer has not been handed to them in advance; they are arriving at it step by step, working it out with God. We, on the other hand, think we already know — and so we stop reaching for Him. And without Him, the answer we are holding cannot yield fruit.
He Does Not Ask for a Reason
With answers in our hands, when trouble touches someone we love, our first instinct is to look for the reason. Who is at fault? What sin caused this? This would be our instinct, until God began to show us something different: He never asks us the reason for anything. He does not demand an explanation before He acts. He simply gives the solution — and that itself is His love. We see the same pattern with the man born blind in John 9. When the disciples saw him, they immediately looked for someone to blame. Even the men closest to Jesus assumed there had to be a guilty party. Jesus’s answer cuts across that entire way of thinking:
“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:2-3 (NIV)
This is the pattern the world still follows today. Sometimes servants of God will tell a suffering family that God is punishing them for sin, then ask for an offering to fix it. Others will pile on guilt, positioning themselves as the holy ones looking down at the broken. But God does not do this to His own. He does not hand out blame — He addresses the problem and brings out of it something good, something that profits us. If we are truly His children, this is the pattern we are called to follow as well: not condemning others, not condemning ourselves, not retreating into self-pity, but trusting that He is already at work.
He Knew Before It Happened
There is a harder truth hidden beneath the ready-made answers and memory verses we have carried since childhood — verses handed down to us by our elders or pastors, which we now use as a tool to reach God rather than to walk with Him. When we set these aside, we can instead work out a solution to our problem together with God.
That harder truth is this: God knew — before it ever happened — exactly what the person we love would walk through. He is never caught by surprise. And once we accept that He knew, a natural question rises within us: if He knew, why didn’t He stop it?
The truth is, God does stop it — but not through a set of “don’t” rules. He stops it through care and compassion, turning our hearts toward the right path, just as He did with Cain in the beginning (Genesis 4:6).
We cannot arrive at this answer if we limit ourselves to a few familiar promise verses and bend them to derive the answers we want. What we can hold onto instead is this belief: because He knew, He also has a plan. His silence is not neglect. Just as the blind man’s condition existed so that the works of God might be displayed in him, so too the trials the people we love walk through — or that we ourselves face — are not proof that God has turned away. Rather, they are the very ground on which His glory will be revealed, in a way none of us could ever orchestrate ourselves.
This truth carries a responsibility with it. When God gives us someone oppressed or cursed by others to love — a son, a daughter, a spouse, or someone we know — the world will often tell us to let go. People will say the relationship is a mistake, that we should walk away, that the person is not worth defending. But if God has given us that person, we are not permitted to withdraw simply because they are difficult, or because others disapprove. He has said of us, “you are mine, and I am yours.” and we are called to hold that position for them even when we cannot see the outcome, and even when it costs us the comfort of others’ approval. Because God knows the past, the present, and the future, we should not be anxious about what people say.
Believing Without Seeing
Job had no answer in hand — and that is precisely why he gives us the clearest picture of what this kind of trust looks like. In the midst of his suffering, having received no answers and no explanation, Job said something remarkable:
I saw him on the left side. I saw him on the right side. I saw him on the front side. I saw him on the back side. I couldn’t find him
Job 23:8-9 (NIV)
Yet Job made a decision in that moment: even if he could not see God, he believed God was looking at him. And so he chose to walk in that conviction without fail, and not go against it. That is a different kind of faith than the one we usually practise — a faith that does not depend on a visible answer to prayer, on an audible reply, or on someone reassuring us it will all work out. It depends only on this:
He knows the path I am walking, even if I cannot see Him on it. I will not go against His purpose. I will cling to that
Job 23:10-12 (NIV)
Job’s own conclusion, after deliberation, was not “and then God explained it all to me.” It was this:
I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Job 42:2 (NIV)
No one can stop what He wants to do; He will do what He wants to do. Once this truth settles in us, we stop demanding reasons for our trials and start trusting the purpose behind them.
Yet a believer often fears that when God does what He wants, it may bring punishment or torment. This fear arises because we are not walking alongside God in step with Him, but rushing ahead to find answers of our own choosing.
We must read the Bible not to select a verse that merely suits our situation, but to search out every Word of God to unearth the truth buried within it. Instead of lingering around familiar words and settling for ready-made answers, we must seek God wholeheartedly. In time, this teaches us to know His will — and to surrender ourselves fully, not to the lies of the world, but to Him alone.
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13 (NIV)
The Jordan Valley 
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