After thinking on it a while, I knew part of the answer: "Yes, we did offend God." In fact, we do it every day. We envy. We boast. We fear. And then believe lies to rationalize sin and make ourselves feel better. We have offended God. Yet the price of offending God was paid by His Son, right? We know that since our repentance, the Cross has covered all our sins--that Christ's blood is sufficient. We don't need to do penance to satisfy God. His wrath has been completely, totally, and forever satisfied.

Still, the question: Why? It's a question that, for a little while, can cause the world crash down around us. It causes us to ask probing, seemingly impudent questions about God Himself. Even His promises can stump us: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures... That last part doesn't make sense. The grass where my family has stood the past month has certainly had its bright moments, but I don't know if we could truly call it green. Has God lied? Is He colorblind? Why does He promise green pastures? Why, oh, why?

When I think of that question, CS. Lewis' oddest book, Till We Have Faces, comes to mind. (I've quoted it here before.) In the story (based on the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche), the beautiful princess Istra is given as a human sacrifice on behalf of her people. Despicably, no one is upset by her death. The people are glad only that the gods will be appeased--not remembering that an innocent girl must pay for their mistakes. Only Istra's sister, Orual, is heartbroken over the sacrifice. As time passes, Orual grows to hate the gods more and more passionately for stealing her sister from her side. She logs her grievances onto several scrolls, keeping an account of the gods' so-called offenses. "No answer," she repeats like a mantra. The gods gave her "no answer."

But when Orual finally has her long-coveted opportunity to make her case against the gods, she re-reads the scrolls. At the moment, her eyes are opened. She sees her own bitterness, jealousy, and selfishness in her complaints. She sees her frailty and ridiculousness of accusing deities of wrongdoing. She then writes, "I ended my first book with the words no answer. I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? Only words, words; to be led out to battle against other words. Long did I hate you, long did I fear you."

And what more can we ourselves do? We do not have the wisdom or all-knowingness to put God on trial. We could, I suppose, keep track of every painful thing in our lives--but I doubt our bitterness could shake God from doing what He wants. He isn't threatened by our opinion. God isn't so insecure as that.

We must then question what constitutes a green pasture. Does it necessarily mean constant rest and comfort for our physical bodies? I don't think so. The greenest pastures--the places that provide vitamins and Miracle Grow for our souls--are the places where we find ourselves truly satisfied in God alone. Whether we are being cushioned by happy days or leaning on God for the tough moments, a green pasture is where we meet with God and realize that He is enough. It's richest gift He could give--not superficial comfort, but the gift of Himself as the God of all comfort. The best thing God can do for us is bring us to love Him more, even if it means peeling us away from everything that we're used to.

What is a green pasture? It's a place where we can give God our "why's" and say with Orual, "You are Yourself the answer."