"Why has all this happened to us?"

Many of us might ask the same question as Gideon in today’s first reading (Judges 6:11-24a):

My Lord, if the LORD is with us,
why has all this happened to us?
Where are his wondrous deeds
of which our fathers told us when they said,
‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’
For now the LORD has abandoned us...

The angel of the Lord does not answer Gideon’s “Why?”.

The angel simply encourages Gideon to go forward “with the strength you have” and with the assurance that the Lord is with him.

Likewise in our own lives, we may not always understand why things happen, even if the Lord is with us. The ways and the wisdom of the God of heaven and earth are not necessarily easy for finite humans to comprehend.

Yet those who are faithful have God’s assurance, expressed so beautifully in today’s Responsorial Psalm (85:9, 11-12, 13-14):

I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD–for he proclaims peace
To his people, and to his faithful ones,
and to those who put in him their hope.