Why?

A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said.

Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed. Then Jesus sent him on his way with a stern warning: “Don’t tell anyone about this. Instead, go to the priest and let him examine you. Take along the offering required in the law of Moses for those who have been healed of leprosy. This will be a public testimony that you have been cleansed.”

But the man went and spread the word, proclaiming to everyone what had happened. As a result, large crowds soon surrounded Jesus, and he couldn’t publicly enter a town anywhere. He had to stay out in the secluded places, but people from everywhere kept coming to him. (Mark 1:40–45)

The question for Jesus was never “are you able,” but rather it was always, “are you willing?” In the case of this particular leper, Jesus was willing and so he healed the man. The question before us is the same as the question of this leper and the heart revealed by his question. The leper was concerned not just for his desperate need, but with the will of God. He understood that the world was a bigger place than just his desire for healing. He knew that God’s will was more important than his own.

The suffering that happens in the world is not meaningless. God knows what is best for us and for the world as a whole. Whatever we face, it is all part of the grander scheme of things: God’s overall creation, a work of enormous beauty which we can see but a tiny corner of. What value or point there may be to what we must endure may never be clear to us. But like the leper, we should be willing to accept whatever God’s will might be, whether, as it was in the case of the leper, the fulfillment of our deepest longing, or whether it might be something else entirely. We do this because we trust that God is good and that he knows what is best. We can therefore safely choose to submit to God’s will and trust him, whatever the short term outcome might be for us.

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