August 28, 2013
Job 2:10 … What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? …
How does that work? A Pennsylvania girl is struck down with a horrible disease, but it looks like she might survive. A Florida boy contracts an awful illness and dies. How come some innocent children get these things and others float through childhood with never a scratch? How come Sarah Murnaghan gets a lung transplant and Zachary Reyna gets to be an organ donor after his brain is destroyed by a brain-eating amoeba? Are you ready for my answer?
Here it is. I don’t really know!
I do know that the answers usually offered to those who are suffering, or whose loved ones are suffering, are not much help. Even when Biblically sound, they are without value unless addressed to those of solid faith. Often the only proper response is to “weep with them that weep” as Paul directs in Romans 12:15. We are created with a sense of eternity. The loss of a loved one leaves a gap in our lives which seems unnatural and painful — even when we know that they have been removed to a better place. It can seem so much worse when joy and suffering seem to strike randomly and the platitudes people offer to mask their own discomfort don’t really help. Believing jthis, I offer what follows not as a consolation, or suggestion about how to give it. It is just my way of dealing with suffering and loss.
I do believe Job had it right. Faith is not a ticket to fortune. We cannot expect God just to be a provider of “good things”. But I do believe that what we receive at His hand is intimately related to His character. There are three things I believe about God. He is all good. He is all powerful. He is all knowing. Somehow, suffering flows from that.
Applying our beliefs to the seeming randomness of life leads me to some slightly uncomfortable conclusions.
Firstly, none of the terrible things that happen take God by surprise. An all knowing God knows what is going to happen.
Secondly, God could prevent any of the appalling things that happen to our loved ones. He is all powerful. Earthquake, plague, famine or fire, accident, sickness, death … God could prevent them all.
Lastly, as God is all good, whatever happens must in the long run be for the best. There can be no better eternal alternative. He chooses to allow things to happen. They are, at the very least, permitted. It is in that part of the nature of God that I feel the deep truth lies. God possesses and grants free will.
An all-protecting God could wrap us in cotton wool and keep us from all earthly harm. He could only do it at the expense of denying us the ability to choose eternity. We would come to take safety for granted, and miss the need for salvation.
The painful truth, to me, is that suffering, modeled by His son, is yet one more gift from a loving God to an eternal family.