When someone tells you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? — Isaiah 8:19

It always seems as if someone’s got all the answers.

Doctors have all the answers. The wonders of modern medicine allow the modern physician to heal illnesses we never before dreamed of healing and treat conditions we never before imagined were treatable.

Scientists have all the answers. New discoveries constantly emerge from laboratories across the world, and our knowledge of the universe in which we live is ever expanding.

Honestly, with the advent of the Internet, literally anyone can provide answers to anyone else. Want to find out how to fix a leak in your sink? An online search can help with that. Need a refresher on how to change a diaper? There is probably a video online with step-by-step directions. Answers to all of our questions seem to be everywhere, don’t they?

And yet, in some ways, we’re still left with the same questions theologians were asking three thousand years ago. Why do bad things happen to good people? What is our purpose – whether within the context of a marriage, a family, a community, or a larger society?

All of the weightiest “why” questions remain as pressing as always. For at the end of the day, as powerful – and often wonderful – as our modern day “mediums and spiritists” may be, we are still called upon to engage the great questions of existence as individuals in lonely contemplation.

It is precisely at times like this when we must remember that while humanity is alone among the species of this earth in seeking to understand its purpose in life, we are not truly alone so long as we inquire of God – so long as we turn to our Creator when times are tough, and give thanks to the Almighty when He blesses us.

As Isaiah teaches us, while humans may make new progress every day – every minute! –  our quest to make sense of our existence, to confront the basic issues that have challenged humanity from day one, can only proceed in the presence of the eternal God.