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8.19.7
On Friday of last week, a Roane County toddler drowned in a swimming pool. A Roane County Sheriff's deputy said, "The mother turned her head for a brief second and the child ended up in the pool."
Why?
Since August 6, rescue workers in Utah have been trying to reach six people trapped 1,500 feet under ground in a mine. On Thursday night, a cave-in killed three rescue workers.
Why?
In Lima, Peru this Wednesday evening, a powerful earthquake took the lives of more than 500 people, including 17 people who were killed when their church collapsed on them.
Why?
On Tuesday, 4 suicide bombers struck at the same time in different places in the northern part of Iraq, in Kurdish settlements where there has been relative peace and stability. More than 200 people were killed and 300 more were wounded. What you can’t see, even in those terrible statistics, is: How many children became orphans? How many mothers became childless? How many engagements were ended violently? How many people were maimed, paralyzed, and left to face life in a place where things are difficult enough for those who have both arms and legs?
Why?
It seems like one tragedy follows another so quickly that the terrible event of the day before yesterday is easily forgotten. How often do you even remember that on December 26, 2004 a tsunami on the Indian Ocean killed nearly a quarter of a million people? I can’t keep one tragedy in my head for long before it gets crowded out by something bigger or at least something closer to home.
Why?
One of the biggest obstacles to faith is the fact of suffering and the question “How could a good and all-powerful God allow it?” For a person who wonders this, there is no shortage of pain to wonder about.
That’s why…this series…the Nooma videos by Rob Bell the next two SNs.
In John 9…
1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
This was a very appropriate, natural question in their culture. People believed that suffering was the direct result of sin, and each bit of suffering had a direct corollary of misbehavior behind it. So, “Who sinned?” This man himself? Sin in utereo, that he was born blind, or was it something God knew he WOULD do in the future? Or was it his parents?
3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
Notice that the focus of the disciples is on the PAST and on the CAUSE. Jesus’ focus though is on the FUTURE and the RESULTS.
One way to read Jesus’ answer is that he’s saying: “God made this man blind for decades so that today he could display his power to heal.” But I don’t read it that way, even though I have to admit that since God IS sovereign, he could do that for his own reasons. What Jesus says – “this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” – is the TRUTH about any suffering we encounter, and any suffering we go through.
So the disciples focus on the PAST and the CAUSE, wanting to pin the blame, Jesus looks to the FUTURE and the RESULTS. How will God show his love through this? What kind of a person can he make out of me, now that this has happened? Where is it that the work of God needs to be displayed in my life?
The disciples ask “WHY?” Rob Bell says “What if you could answer that?” What would it say about God if there were easy-to-grasp answers about suffering? “Why did he die in that accident?” “Well, he cheated on his taxes years ago, and that’s what you get…” “Why does she have cancer?” “Well she was vain, and her focus was always on herself.” When I was in 7th grade, a boy I grew up with got sick and died. My 12-year-old mind made peace with it by saying to myself, “Well he was a mean kid, disrespectful to his Mom, kind of a bully.” He was just an ordinary boy with rough edges like all of us. But at that time I needed to have an answer as to why, mostly to tell myself that it couldn’t happen to me. The universe makes sense. There are rules. Karma.
What kind of God would he be if the answers were that simple? What would be missing from that kind of relationship? Freedom on our part, the ability to CHOOSE to love Him. If the arrangement is that he zaps us when we sin, all we have left is to serve him in fear. So Jesus looks to the FUTURE and the RESULTS. "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.”
Now if you want answers about suffering, you have to turn to the book of Job. Actually it isn’t answers you’ll find so much as people who think they have answers, people who are extremely confident, but who are wrong. The truth is that the book of Job begins with a sort-of-answer to the question of why one man suffers, but it isn’t an answer that satisfies.
Job begins by telling us about a righteous man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. In good OT fashion, he was faithful and righteous and therefore he was blessed with lots of material things and lots of sons and daughters.
But one day Satan (or “THE satan, THE accuser) came before God and challenged God concerning Job and said, “You know, Job only serves you because you’ve bribed him with all these blessings. Withdraw your hand and let me beat up on Job, and he’ll turn his back on you just like that!”
I’ve got to stop and ask: If the accuser made that accusation against me or against you, would he be right?
God said, “OK, he’s yours to do as you please, only don’t touch him physically...”
As a result, Job has one of the most awful days in human history. He lost his livestock, the main currency of the wealth of a Middle Eastern man at that time; he lost his servants; and he lost his seven sons and three daughters.
What does he do?
1:20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:
"Naked I came
from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
22 In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
What an incredible statement of the sovereignty of God, that God knows what he is doing, that in fact God has a RIGHT to do what he does. Sooner or later, Job says, we lose everything. Now or later. We enter this world with nothing and we leave it with nothing. Who are we to second-guess if the Almighty takes it away sooner than we suppose he should?
I am not at the point where I can say that. But I can see where that kind of faith would be a rock of stability and comfort in this sometimes terrible life.
Well, Job got hit again. This time Satan worked out a wager with God that said Job would give up and turn on God if he had to suffer physically, so God allowed it and Satan hammered Job with sores and pain and pus and itching. But it doesn’t work. Job still will not curse God. In fact he says to his wife: “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?" (2:10)
Now I said that the book of Job begins with a sort-of-answer about suffering, and the answer is that JOB suffers because God and Satan had a little wager, which isn’t the kind of answer we’re looking for, nor is it portrayed as anything like the norm. I also said that there are people who have answers in Job, and one of them is Job’s wife who tells him: 2:9 "Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!" No uncertainty there.
And then Job has friends who spend most of the book telling him that innocent people do not suffer – guilty people do. Therefore, he needs to humble himself and own up to his sin wherever it might be and when he does this, God will relieve him of his pain.
Once when I was going through a difficult time and our church was going through a difficult time, a man called me and said, in the nicest way he could manage, that whenever he was having trouble, he tried to figure out what God was teaching him as quickly as he could so that the trouble would end. His implication: The sole purpose of trouble is to educate us, so if our troubles continue it means we aren’t learning fast enough, AND…the reason I was having trouble was I was too dumb to learn what God was teaching me.
If ONLY it were that simple! If only suffering and pain could be traced back to a direct cause, a stupid action I took… One time I was standing in the Fellowship Hall with a guy and his young son, and there were two tables standing there at an angle, and the boy walked between the two tables and when he reached the point where they pinched his head, he starting yelling and kept trying to walk forward…
If ONLY suffering were always like that, where someone of greater intelligence or maturity could say: “Back up!”
All of that plays in to our desire to focus on the PAST and the CAUSE. Do you realize, though, that our desire to know the CAUSE is just another example of our unwise desire to be in control? If there IS a reason WHY that we can know, there may be something we can DO. It’s very understandable. I think it’s fair to say that having a reason would give us a lot of comfort. But on the other hand, a reason I could understand would probably be a very simple reason, and if God’s understanding could be brought down to my level, God wouldn’t be much of a God.
The guy who told me that I needed to learn what God wanted to teach me…9 times out of ten, he’s right. There is a lot of self-inflicted suffering. It doesn’t help me understand, though, why my Grandpa lived 91 years, and my Dad 66, and why someone else lives 37 or 25 or why this little girl died at 2. Jesus tells his disciples: “Who sinned? You’re asking the wrong question.” Believe me, if I could answer “Why?” I would, and someday when He wipes away every tear…
But here and now, the question that FAITH asks is: ‘To what end?” Not “Who sinned?” but “How can the work of God now be displayed in my life through this?”
If you are going through an especially difficult time, it can be very helpful to pray through some of the Psalms, to actually use the words of a Psalm as your prayer, and one such Psalm is 71. It’s written by a guy with troubles, with enemies, with people who will dance in the streets if he dies, and yet he refuses to give up or stop praising God. He even says (v. 18) “Don’t let me die till I’ve had a chance to sing your praises to the next generation.”
71:20 Though
you have made me see troubles, many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.
21 You
will increase my honor
and comfort me once again.
That Psalm illustrates the choice that suffering presents to us…Will we be eaten by resentment or ask God to pull us along toward greater faithfulness? Will we become bitter or better? Will we get lost in “Why?” or move forward with “Now what, God?”
We live in a time when people say that if you’re not cynical, you’re not smart; if you aren’t depressed, you aren’t paying attention. That’s one way to go. But there is another.
We can choose to be people of faith, and if that is going to mean anything, it is going to mean that, in suffering as well as in happiness, we REMEMBER who God is, what he has done, and what he has promised yet to do.
Psalm 13
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
PS 13:1 How
long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
PS 13:2 How
long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
PS 13:3 Look
on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
PS 13:4 my
enemy will say, "I have overcome him,"
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
So far, very natural. Cynical. Depressed. Reasonable. But then he REMEMBERS.
PS 13:5 But
I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.
PS 13:6 I
will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.
REMEMBER...what God has already done for you. Remember who he is. Remember why you serve him in the first place. Remember what you say you believe about him.
And then, when you run into suffering – yours or someone you can help – remember to ask not the backward looking “Why?” but the future-focused “To what end?” “How can God reveal himself through me now?”
Morrison
Hill Christian Church
P.O. Box 59 - 1008 E.
Race St.
Kingston, TN 37763 (865) 376-5205
