The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Friend, when you come in all honesty and transparency to God, the floodgates of heaven will open wide, and God will pour out upon you a blessing that you won't be able to contain. You will overflow with joy.

Guest (Male): With domestic and world events as they are today, it's natural to ask why. If you've been a parent of young children, the why question was at times nonstop. But on today's Healing Word, Pastor Jack Morris is going to suggest a different question in asking who in the place of why.

God's ways are not our ways, and as we trust that he has everything under control, we can rest in knowing who and not needing to know why. Be blessed by today's message: The Why Question.

Pastor Jack Morris: Why were 17 missionaries, women and children in Haiti, captured, and who knows where they are today? We need to pray for them. The question is, why is this going on? They were returning from an orphanage where they were serving children, and they were captured.

Haiti is a place where the Chevaliers, those of you who know Will and Jackie Chevalier, ministered and at the seminary there. The president was recently shot to death. Then I get the call from Ramon yesterday, broken, hurting, and scared. He told me, "I'm scared, Pastor Morris, I'm scared."

He said, "I said to Faith, Faith, I want us to stay on earth. We're not to die." He said at 7:00 in the morning, she was talking out of her head, saying things that made no sense. He said, "Faith, you're not making any sense," and she started screaming.

That's what Ramon was asking me. Why, Pastor Morris? Friend's condition, your condition. Why? Then I got a letter from a lady that attends this church, very much a part of the Largo Community Church. She was asking me not quite like what I'm asking about what's going on in Haiti, but a question two or three years ago she was asking herself and asking God.

Why does my husband, after 47 years, why has he been stricken with Parkinson's disease? After 47 years, in her letter, she said, "After 47 years, why does this man not know his wife? He doesn't know me after 46 years. What's going on?" Then he comes down with dementia, then he dies. Why, Pastor Morris? Why, God?

I know some of you are asking the question why. I've asked that question, and I'm sure I'm going to find myself asking it again and again as life goes on. Even Jesus asked that question on the cross, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Have you ever felt God-forsaken in a situation?

Let's find the answer today. Let's learn to pray because God will hear and answer our prayer. We're his children. We're invited. God is saying, "Come, come, come to the throne of grace, and come boldly. Why are you shy? Why are you hesitating? Why are you trying to control the situation?"

God wants us to give it to him. He'll take it, and he'll work out something beautiful every time. God never fails, does he? He's here to help us this morning, and some of us, hopefully all of us, are going to receive the help that we need and have the answer to the question why answered by him.

Not that we will have the design how to move through, but yes, move through the situation. God is here to do something. I'm excited about what God's going to do for me and you. He's in his house. We're in his house. Friends who are streaming at home, your home is his house.

It's the house of God. Whether you're around your kitchen table or sitting on your couch, God is there. Holy, holy, holy is your home today. The church is in the house where God's people dwell.

I'm going to refer to this lady. I got permission. I called her, talked to her, even read sections of her letter back, and asked if I had her permission to take it to the congregation. She said, "Absolutely. If you have that letter and you want to share it, anything I can do to help the church, to help the people of God."

Isn't it wonderful to be a Christian and say, "Pastor, is there anything I can do to help the people of God? Is there anything I can do to help my brothers and sisters at the Largo Community Church?" She said, "I want to work for the Lord. I'm alone now. I have the time."

This lady applied to become a member of the church two years ago. We had about 15 people signed up for a membership class, and the COVID hit, and we had to close everything down. She writes back and says, "Pastor, I'm back. When are you having a membership class?"

I encouraged her. I said, "I'm your pastor whether we have a membership class or we don't have a membership class, but we will have one because a membership is like a marriage ceremony. That's where we really truly make a verbal commitment to one another."

Her letter, after the initial greetings to me, becomes very transparent. She began telling me about the grief that she had two years ago. Grief is a deep, deep sorrow, a sadness that is almost deeper than life itself. She tells me about the grief, and I sat at my desk and read it with full attention, and then I prayed.

She goes step by step through the grief process that she was going through. Then she concludes the letter giving praise and thanks to God that it took two years to get her through, but she got through. She found the answer. She learned to pray. Faith has guided her all the way.

God is in his house today, and God is in your heart today. Like a minister friend, Pastor Blair, so many, many years ago when I was still at another church. I've told the story so many times that you'll more than likely hear it again and again, but it's my life, and it was awesome.

I was about as low as I could get, and I knew God was working and God was with me. But you can know that God is with you and still be going through a very difficult low place. I went in our bedroom and turned the light on. It was dark outside. I called him in Denver, Colorado.

I had to talk to a living person. I've learned now that I was just a young man back then, and I shared with him. The only thing he said to me was, "Jack, God is nearer to you than your hands and feet." That one little statement brought such encouragement to me.

I was emboldened by that. I said by God's grace in my heart, I don't know what the words were, but there's going to be a church. We're going to found a church, plant a church. Where, I'm not sure. But making the long story short, this became the answer: the Largo Community Church.

Every religion has a way of dealing with grief. Grief is not something that we should try to avoid. Grief is something that we move through. It took her maybe two years to move through, and she did. She moved through, and God blessed her and helped her.

You may have a broken relationship that is recent or has been for many years. There's no way you know how to put it back together again. You've tried, but that broken relationship has caused you grief, real sad sorrow. A dear friend, a spouse, a son, a daughter, a mother, or a colleague.

They were so close and now so far apart, and the grief just continues on because that broken relationship is not allowed to mend. That grief may be caused because of an unhealed childhood memory. It keeps haunting you and keeps coming back. Something happened back there, and somehow you haven't yet been able to move beyond.

You try to avoid it. Don't avoid it anymore. Just let it come on. When it comes on, you attack it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm going to help you toward the end of this message. You may have made a past mistake, a failure.

You think to yourself, "I'm a Christian. I've been a Christian all this time. Why did I do that? Why did I say that? Why did I behave in that way?" Well, it's done. You did it. You're grieving over it. But today God is going to help you move beyond.

He's a healing God. He sent his word and healed them. That's why we call the radio program The Healing Word. It's the word of God. Where is God when it hurts? But there's another question maybe even deeper than that. When the hurt becomes intense, you ask, "Where is God when the hurt won't go away?"

Today God is here to help you and to move you through that hurt. I don't know how long it'll take him to move you through it, but he's your shepherd, and he's going to take you to a high place of victory in him today. The question why is not a bad question at all, particularly for the scientists.

Scientists have asked the question why, and it's caused them to be motivated to go into outer space to explore the mysteries of the universe and to make great discoveries. The why question is motivating scientists right now to find out where did this virus come from? Why did it get here?

They're looking in caves and looking at bats. Why is fine. It's wonderful. Thank God for the scientists that are being motivated by it. But listen, when it comes to trauma and trial and problems individually, the why question isn't very helpful at all.

This is what the lady said. She said, "I would cry out to the Lord asking why wouldn't he help me?" But after her husband's death, in quiet times, she would ask God to forgive her. Friends, listen to me closely. Forgiveness is still a prayer that even Christians should pray.

We need forgiveness. We've done things, said things, have attitudes, and we can't move beyond it until we do pray that prayer of forgiveness. She said after her husband's death, when she asked God to forgive her, God revealed to her that he was there to help her, but she would not let him.

She would not let him, and she would not let go of the feelings of being in control. "I'm my own woman. I'm my own man." We don't say that, but we act that way. "I can fix it. I can handle it." No, we can't. In God's mercy, God let her know that she controlled nothing, that he is in control of every situation in her life.

This is what I said to this lady, and this is what I said to Ramon yesterday when Ramon called. I just tried to call him 10 minutes before I came out on the platform, but there was no answer. I suppose he's down at the hospital. It's a hospital right here in Largo.

I said, "Ramon, God is with you, and the evidence that God is with you is that you feel that he's not with you, that you're crying out to him." I look out there, and there is that lady sitting in the congregation right now beside you.

You don't know who's beside you. You don't know who needs that smile. We're not supposed to shake hands or hug, but I get carried away on Sunday morning and I start hugging. If you don't want me to hug you, go out that door or that one.

Because you are asking why won't God help me, that in itself is an evidence that God is there with you, putting those thoughts in your mind to ask him why won't you help me. Ramon, God is with you, and he's with Faith. You're asking why.

If God weren't there, you wouldn't even be thinking about God. Because you are thinking God and God is in your vocabulary, God is there. This lady came to find out that God was with her in his mercy and in his grace.

It's not why, it's who. It's not W-H-Y, it's W-H-O. You may get a why answer, or you may not. But when you look to the Lord, you look to who. He's the physician of the mind, of the heart, and of the grief.

Let me give another quote from the lady's letter. "While caring for my husband, there were times I felt angry, scared, betrayed, lonely, sorry for myself. During those times, I would cry out to the Lord asking why." Christians do get angry, and we wonder why we have to go through this.

I think of those 17 missionaries there in Haiti. Maybe some of them are angry today. Have you ever been angry with God? Yes, you have. We wouldn't say, "God, I'm angry at you," but "Why, God? You have all the power of heaven and earth and I'm your child."

A lot of the why questions come out of an angry mind, but it's okay. I've gotten angry with my mother and dad at times growing up and even after I've grown up. We get angry. But scared? Can I tell you how many times I've been scared, angry, lonely, or even sorry for myself?

God cares for us. He knows where we are. He knows the emotion that is going on, and all he wants you to do is tell him what he already knows because he wants to connect with that feeling that you have. He wants to connect with you.

If God could speak to him, he would say, "I already know your feeling. I know you're angry. I know you're sorry for yourself. I know you feel betrayed. I know you're lonely. Just tell me. Tell me." That's all we have to do is tell the Lord.

Point C in your outline: there the resources are. The church, the family of God, hymns of worship, devotionals, and on and on it goes. You have an abundance of resources, but the resource of all is who? Him: the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you talk to the Lord about that trying situation that you're in, you're being tested and tried. I know some of you are, or God wouldn't have told me to preach this message today. Actually, next week Minister Hooper is going to bring the message.

But God said, "You go to the people today and give them the message that I care for them, I love them, and I want to help them. But they have to help themselves by coming to me." That's the only way we can help ourselves, by not helping ourselves: coming to the Lord.

How about that difficult person in your life? That person that just rubs you the wrong way and you can't get over that person? Have you ever had or do you have a difficult person in your life? Don't raise your hands on that one.

Go to the Lord and ask him how much difficulty am I putting into this? Start with yourself and then that trauma or that trial. When you come in all honesty and transparency to God, the floodgates of heaven will open wide, and God will pour out upon you a blessing that you won't be able to contain.

You will overflow with joy. As the song said, "I was sad and lonely. All my hopes were gone. Days were long and dreary. I could not carry on. Then I found the courage to keep my head up high once again. Once again, I'm happy, and here's the reason why. I found the answer."

Guest (Male): When we cease asking why and begin looking to who, we find our Father of compassion, the God of all comfort. Seek him today through prayer and reading the Bible, and your life will be miraculously changed.

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Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.