Rich Dixon is back, thinking about questions.

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The Freedom Tour 2017 team spent a second night discussing storms and a well-known passage, Hebrews 12: 1-3.

Opening question: in the context of our conversation about storms, what’s the writer’s main point?

I’ll let you ponder that one. Here’s an idea that came up in our circle.

“WHY?” is a common response to storms.

Why here? Why now? Why me?

And it became obvious there was a companion response: “HOW?”

How could this happen? How did they not see this coming?

I think WHY? and HOW? are normal human responses, and in some cases I’m sure they’re worth pursuing. But too often, these questions reflect a misguided need to blame something or someone – as though finding fault will somehow make us feel better.

I have some experience here. In the days and weeks (and years) following my injury, well-meaning people offered all manner of explanations. It was God’s Plan. God caused my injury to teach me a lesson.

I’m grateful for knowing God didn’t throw me off that roof on purpose.

Eventually, I realized WHY? and HOW? didn’t matter. What mattered was the reality of the storm and how I decided to go forward. Of course, it took this slow learner more than a decade to figure out how to accomplish that.

In our team discussion, we decided that humility might be an important part of responding to the storm. Because, just maybe, it’s not about me.

Perhaps something bigger is involved, a bigger picture, a bigger story than I can possibly imagine.

Maybe getting us to focus on HOW and WHY is part of the enemy’s strategy. By making ourselves the central figure in the story and searching desperately for explanations and something or someone to blame, we fail to “… fix our eyes on Jesus…”

Focus on Jesus, not the storm.

Was that the writer’s main point?