Does God decide how much we can handle, then unload on us? NO

The subject of this picture came up at our church's Bible study on Tuesday. The picture appeared on Facebook on Thursday.

The saying on the poster is a good antidote to one of the stupid, unbiblical things that people say at funeral visitations. You know the one I mean. People say, "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."

What a lot of rot!

God isn't sitting in heaven figuring the amount of burdens and griefs He knows that we can bear, then dolloping them out to us accordingly. 

Griefs and burdens come to us because this is a fallen and imperfect world. This isn't heaven. 

God doesn't like the burdens of sin and grief and death we have. That's why He came into the world in Christ to defeat and destroy the power of sin and evil over those who trust in Christ. 

But, in this world, we still will grieve and suffer and die.

We inherited the condition of alienation from God and others when we were born. That condition of alienation is what the Bible calls sin. (From this condition, we commit sins.)

So, until we die, we remain susceptible to the pains and griefs of this world. And we die.

But, God's Word tells us that "...the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). 

Hope for an eternal life free from death and strength for this life come as free gifts to all who repent and believe in Christ.

God doesn't give you the things you have to bear. It's living in this world that does that and there is no limit to what suffering might come to you or to any of us. No one is exempt.

However much suffering this world brings to us, if we take the scarred hand of Jesus, God will help us bear it, and eventually, into the resurrection living Christ has secured for His people.

[UPDATE, a further thought: The apostle Paul does write in 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it." This may be where the "God won't give you more than you can bear" nonsense started.

Here, Paul is addressing temptation, tests of one's faith, which may be rooted in our own desires or in suffering. But, in either case, Paul is talking about the temptation that may come in any situation to abandon trust in the God we know in Christ. When such temptation happens, Paul says, God will not let you be tempted beyond your capacity to endure, as you rely on Christ. And, this is the part I love, he says that God will give escape hatches for those tempted to abandon the faith. 

This text differs from the common funeral home saying too, because temptation, the subject of the 1 Corinthians passage, does not come from God, any more than suffering does. James 1:13-14 teaches us: "When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed."

God does test us, so that our faith may be strengthened. And He may even use the temptations meted out by the devil, the world, and our sinful selves, to do so. But if God tests and refines us through temptations, we can say to the temptation what Joseph said to his brothers, who had once sold him into slavery, an action that ultimately led Joseph to a position of authority from which he saved hundreds of thousands of lives, "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good..." (Genesis 50:20).]

[Thanks to Terri, a member of the first parish I served as pastor, for posting the picture which dovetailed with a conversation we'd had surrounding the Old Testament book of Job just two days before.]

For We Ordinary Folk, God Can Be 'Hard to Get'

Rich Mullins did this demo for a song he intended to include in what he was calling The Jesus Record. Tragically, he died in 1997, before undertaking the project. But I love this raw recording, just Rich and his guitar, made shortly before his death.

It expresses the questions every person of faith poses about why suffering comes to us, why seemingly harmless, wholesome desires go unmet, where God is when all is darkness.

Christians don't run from such questions, of course, and must seek the Holy Spirit's power to live each day with the mysteries, ambiguities, and tragedies of this life, trusting that the God Who stepped into our world and bore suffering and death on our behalf, will be with us through the darkness and one day share His resurrection light with us. It isn't easy and it truly can't be done without God's help.

I know that I've shared this song on the blog before. But I love it. And it just seems so right today.

Reflections on Job and the Suffering of the Innocent

Along with members of Saint Matthew who are reading the Bible in a year, I'm wrestling with the Old Testament book of Job these days.

Job is no theoretical essay on the question of why faithful or innocent people suffer. (What the theologians call theodicy.) It's the story of the experiences and feelings of one faithful man who undergoes multiple tragedies. It also recounts the ensuing arguments he has with "friends" in trying to explain it all.

Despite their bitter disagreements, through much of the book, Job and his friends all believe in "retributive justice," the idea that when we suffer, it's punishment from God for sin.

It's a tempting argument. So much of life evidences "the law of cause and effect." And the Bible does teach that, in an ultimate sense, suffering is rooted in the human condition of sin, our inborn alienation from God, Who is the source of life. Ultimately too, the Bible teaches that those who refuse to turn from sin and turn to the God revealed in Christ for forgiveness and new life, will suffer eternal alienation from God.

But the Bible--including the book of Job--also affirms two disturbing facts about life in this world:

• The innocent sometimes suffer.
• The unrepentant sometimes thrive.

The book of Job is a warning from God against any simplistic thinking about human suffering. Anyone who, like Job's misguided friends, think they have figured out why people suffer would be well advised to read Job and then, clam up.

Both as a human being and as someone who's counseled people for almost thirty years, I believe (I know) that ultimately, no intellectual explanation of suffering will help people when they suffer or grieve.

That may be why the book of Job ends without an explanation, but a call for continuing reliance on God.

Today, heeding that call may be easier than it would have been for Job. The New Testament records how God came into the world in the person of Jesus and bore both the weight of human suffering and our debt for sin, then rose from the dead. For people who dare to hand over their sins and their lives to Christ, suffering and all its painful questions are not the last word. We have two incredible comforts:

• The presence of Christ with us, "to the close of the age."
• The promise of a new life, free of suffering, with God for eternity.

There are lots of things in the book of Job that disturb me and that I can't explain. And there are many things in this life that disturb me, driving me to fervent prayer. But, I ask God to help me be more like Job, who believed even when he got angry with God. I ask God to help me to keep holding onto Jesus whatever life brings.

Given Comfort to Be a Comfort

See here.

Where God's Power is Seen

[This was shared during worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, this morning.]

2 Corinthians 12:2-10
One of my seminary professors, Ron Hals, used to wonder whether, if he had lived during the time of Jesus, he might not have been as skeptical as Jesus’ enemies (and Jesus's friends) could be.

“I can just imagine,” he would tell us, “seeing Jesus perform a miracle like restoring sight to a blind man or raising Lazarus from the dead and then saying, ‘Do it again...Slower.’”

Dr. Hals was saying that had he lived in first century Palestine, he might have questioned Jesus’ power. And had he seen Jesus crucified, he might well have wondered what good Jesus’ power was if Jesus couldn’t elude suffering with that power.

Skepticism about Jesus’ power and the good it does in the lives of those who believe in Jesus is nothing new. In our second Bible lesson, the apostle Paul, the first century evangelist, some of whose writings comprise a big chunk of the New Testament, is dealing with Christians who are skeptical about these very things.

Apparently, shortly before Paul wrote to these Christians, members of the church in the Greek city of Corinth, had been wowed by some preachers who had convinced them that if the power of the God made known to the world through Jesus was really in them, then their lives would be problem-free. They would have success, victories, and no illness.

Now, it is true that Christ gives His Church, among other ministries, the power to bring God’s help to people, including healing for all kinds. That’s among the reasons why, here at Saint Matthew, we pray for people’s healing during worship, have healing services, and are starting our parish health ministry. In our Gospel lesson for today, Jesus sent out the twelve apostles two by two, and gave them the power to heal in His Name.

But no healing in this world lasts indefinitely; even after Jesus brought His friend Lazarus back from the dead, Lazarus still died again. This world and you and I are imperfect and death comes to all who are part of this world. There’s no way around that.

“So, where is the power of God and what good is the power of God in your preaching?” the Corinthians asked Paul.

Their questions were pointed because, unlike the preachers who had wowed them, Paul was a less than impressive figure. By this time deep into his forties or early fifties, elderly in that world, slight, balding, a poor and rambling speaker who scratched together what little income he made by patching together tents, Paul’s career as a Christian preacher wasn’t notable for its successes. In the course of his work, he’d been arrested and flogged, shipwrecked and beaten, mocked, chased out of several towns, and jailed. How far through the call process do you think a preacher like Paul would make it in most churches? Not far, I’ll bet. Most people would look at him and see a big “L” for “loser” on his forehead.

But by the time we get to the point in the letter to the Corinthian Christians that makes up our second lesson for today, this loser has a thing or two to say to these people who question the authenticity of his message about Jesus Christ and his authority to share it.

Maybe wary of being a braggart, Paul uses the third person to tell about a personal experience he’d had fourteen years earlier, but, so far as we know, had never shared before. “I know a person in Christ,” he says, “who…was caught up in the third heaven [this is what early Christians called paradise, where the risen and ascended Jesus lives]…and [Paul goes on, this person] heard things…that no mortal is permitted to repeat…”

Paul had experienced a vision of heaven that the preachers who had impressed the Corinthian Christians might not even have been able to imagine.

But, Paul says--and this is the most important thing about our lesson from Second Corinthians--that experience, as awesome as it was, did not prove Jesus’ power over sin and death and it didn’t prove Paul’s authority to tell others about Jesus. Something else did. In fact, two something elses proved those things. God's power is most readily seen in two ways.

The first is in God's grace.

The second is in our weakness.

A conference of theologians was being held in Great Britain. They’d been debating the question of what was the central teaching of the Christian faith. Apparently by coincidence, C.S. Lewis, the novelist and teacher who had once been an atheist and then a champion of Christian belief, happened on the conference. When Lewis learned that they were debating what was the most important teaching of Christianity, he said, “That’s easy: Grace.” Grace is God’s charity, God’s acceptance us we are.

The super apostles who had wowed the Corinthian Christians said that, “If there’s something wrong in your life—some illness, adversity, heartbreak, poverty, or struggle—it proves that you’re faithless.”

You still hear people saying things like this today. A faithful pastor friend of mine watched, as within months, his wife was diagnosed with a debilitating disease and his daughter was found to suffer from Down Syndrome. At a church convention shortly thereafter, he asked for prayers. During a break, a man approached him and said, “I am praying that you will repent because you must have done something terribly wrong for God to send these punishments to you.” I wish the apostle Paul had been around when that ignorant man approached my friend. Paul would have given him a smackdown!

In our lesson, Paul says that to keep him from being too elated by his heavenly vision, God had allowed Satan to afflict him with some sort of “thorn in the flesh.” We have no idea what it was. It may have been an illness, an incessant temptation, a psychological disturbance, a relationship problem, a lack of money. We don’t know. Three times, Paul says, he had asked God for relief. And three times the answer came back, “My grace—my charitable love, forgiveness, presence, and acceptance—are sufficient.”

Everybody here this morning knows what it is to experience thorns in the flesh. They’re the problems and heartaches that bedevil us and seem never to go completely away. They drive us to our knees and there, before God, we learn that all of the things we thought we needed to make life complete—health, money, connections, the big house, the respect of others—are nice, but they're not what we need the most. What we really need is the grace of God given to all through Jesus Christ. God's grace is the first thing that proves the power of Jesus Christ.

The second thing that proves the power of Jesus Christ is our weakness. Two weeks ago tonight, sixteen of us from Saint Matthew, who were on our mission trip in Nashville, gathered for our nightly devotions. From our handbook for the week, Sam asked this question of us, “What changes about a person when the Spirit of the Lord is on them?” I immediately thought of those times when I’ve sensed that God, the Holy Spirit, the Power and Presence of God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, has been with me, and my answer to that question was clear: I know God is with me when I can do what I can’t do.

Many, if not most, of you know exactly what I’m talking about...

You had to be with a loved one over months as they died and you knew that on your own, you couldn’t do what you needed to do.

Or, you had to undergo one more round of medical treatments, one more battery of tests, and you knew that you just couldn’t take it.

Or, in order to graduate or be certified, you had to pass a class for which you knew you had no talent or ability.

Or, to make the mortgage payment and provide your kids with a nice Christmas, you had to work double shifts for which you knew you didn’t have the strength.

In each case, you called out to the God we know in Jesus Christ and confessed, “Lord, I can’t.” And in each case, God told you, “I know that you can’t. But I can! Lean on me."

This was exactly what Paul experienced when he had asked God to remove the unidentified thorn in his flesh. “I’m not taking this adversity away,” God told Paul. “You’re going to have to go through it, leaning on my grace.” Why? Because, God says, “power is made perfect in weakness.”

God’s power is experienced only by people who admit that they’re powerless without Jesus Christ. We’re powerless when, by ourselves, we try to make sound decisions, make our relationships work, be happy, deal with our sins, or face life and death. But when we own our weakness and seek Christ’s help, we can face anything. God’s power surges into us. “Whenever I am weak,” Paul says, “I am strong.”

“I didn’t know if I could ever be happy again,” a woman told me years after her husband had died. There were dark days, pain interspersed with lifeless numbness. All the while, there were things to be done—children to be raised, bills to be paid, errands to be run. “I was sure that I just couldn’t do it,” she said. But in the midst of it all, she learned what Paul underscores in today’s lesson. Through Jesus Christ, God demonstrates His power by giving grace to the needy—and that’s all of us—and strength to the weak—that, too, is all of us.

If you’re feeling weak or powerless today, that’s good. It means you’re seeing life clearly. Don’t give up hope. Our strong God stands at the ready to give you grace and strength. God will see you through!

Think That God Doesn't Care?

Think about this.

'When Tragedy Hits the Innocent'

Earlier today, at our church I had a discussion with our congregational Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on the question of why God allows human suffering. I drew in part on a four-part series I wrote four years ago called, When Tragedy Hits the Innocent. Below are links to all four installments. I hope that you find them helpful.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 4 (Rerun)

[This the final installment of a four-part series I wrote and first presented back in November, 2004. It's being presented in a slightly revised form here.]

She was sixty years old and she was dying of cancer. It had been a long fight with early victories, disappointing setbacks, and now, the end was clearly near.

"Are you angry with God?" I asked her.

"I was at first," she answered honestly. "But then I remembered that He's right here with me. Somehow that helped me."

In the first three installments of this series, I've dealt with the question of why people are subjected to seemingly undeserved suffering. Sadly, suffering happens all the time. Just as it did to the sixty year old woman I visited in the hospital. Just as it happens countless times each day---from hospital oncology wards in every city in America to the scenes of armed battles around the globe. In our world, the innocent do suffer.

Given that reality, "Why?" may not be the right question for us to ask. One of my seminary professors, the systematician Donald Luck, used to say that one question that might more profitably be asked in response to those who ask, "Why?" is, "Why not?"

Why would suffering surprise us?

Why, given what we can observe or experience each day, would we assume that anybody is exempt from suffering?

On this side of heaven, we won't really know why God allows the innocent to suffer. But we can know how to suffer, how to fight our suffering and the suffering of others, how to live and go on in a world where tragedy happens.

We can cope by leaning on the God Who suffers with us. Through Jesus Christ, God knows exactly what it's like to suffer undeservedly.

Seven centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, He was described by the prophet Isaiah:

He was despised and rejected by others;
a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him of no account.

Surely he has borne our infirmities
and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have all turned to our own way,
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. [Isaiah 53:3-6]

The New Testament book of Philippians, written by the first century evangelist and preacher Paul, quotes what some Biblical scholars think is an early hymn of the Church:

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.

Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. [Philippians 2:5-11]

Through Jesus, God has linked with every aspect of our experience, including our suffering.

Jesus is the very embodiment of the word compassion, a compound word that literally means to suffer with. Through Jesus, God suffers with us and thereby makes our suffering more bearable.

And He doesn't cut and run when the going gets tough. He promises to be with us always.

He also gives us a family called the Church, people who will rejoice with us and cry with us, pray with us and hope with us, sing with us and be silent with us. This is so important!

More than that, the people who surrender themselves to Christ live and die in the knowledge that God gives life beyond our suffering. He gives everlasting life to those with faith in Him. It makes this life and all that can go wrong bearable. It gives this life meaning and purpose!

Karl Marx, the co-creator of Communist theory, used to taunt believers. He called religion the opiate of the people. It can be. But not for a real-life believer in Jesus Christ!

One of the contemporary heroes of Christian faith is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The South African cleric stood against the evil system of apartheid in his country. Each day brought death threats to his mailbox.

"Why do you do it?" people would ask Tutu. I can't help it, he would say. I can't help speaking out against injustice. Besides, he said, death isn't the worst thing that can happen to a Christian!

Knowing that they are forever in the hands of Jesus gives people a courage and a tenacity for living they wouldn't otherwise have. It doesn't make suffering easier. But it does help the follower of Christ to know that...

they don't suffer alone

they have life beyond the suffering

they, like their Savior, can suffer with others

they have the family of the Church to uphold, encourage, and share hope with them

they know that God will never walk away!

There's a passage of Scripture I've told my wife must be read at my funeral. If it isn't, I'm popping out of the box and reading it myself:

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,

‘For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. [Romans 8:31-39]

I pray God that He will help me to remember what that verse teaches, come what may.

When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 3 (Rerun)

[I'm re-presenting this series I first wrote back in 2004. I hope that people find it helpful. This post represents a slight revision of the third installment. The first two installments are herehere.] and

In the first two posts of this series, I've talked about how it's understandable when we wonder why tragedy befalls the innocent. I've also observed that generally speaking, God doesn't seem to answer that question.

But on the pages of the New Testament section of the Bible, there is an example of a time when God did give a reason for one of His innocents' suffering.

A man named Saul from the city of Tarsus was not always innocent. Burning with an Osama bin-Laden-like zeal for his faith as a Jew, convinced that followers of the risen Jesus were dangerous heretics, he approved murdering these people who would later be called Christians.

He also gained authorization from religious authorities in Jerusalem to go to synagogues in other towns and regions to have his fellow Jews confessing Jesus as Lord excommunicated from the faith and worse.

But, Saul's life changed. On his way to the city of Damascus, carrying authorization papers, Saul encountered the risen Jesus. He himself became a follower of Jesus and eventually, undertook a life-long mission of carrying the Good News of Jesus to the world. Gratified and stunned to learn the truth about God--the truth that God wants to save us and not condemn us, that eternity and forgiveness are free gifts from a gracious God and not things that we can earn---Saul, now renamed Paul, spent the rest of his life telling the world about Jesus Christ and the new life He makes possible.

Much of the New Testament is composed of Paul's letters to early Christian congregations spread around the Mediterranean basin. Paul proclaimed that the power of sin and death over one's life could be erased when, as a matter of faith, one received Jesus Christ as God and Savior. He said that on the cross, Jesus paid the debt all of us owe to God for our rebellion against God. Faith, says Paul, is a surrendering trust by which we go through death, dying to sin, in order to rise to a pure, new life with Jesus Christ.

In his magnum opus, the New Testament book of Romans, Paul writes:

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. For whoever has died is freed from sin. But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. [Romans 6:5-10]

Paul's life of faith and of sharing Jesus wasn't easy. He never generated enough personal income to be able to devote all his time to preaching, working as a tentmaker throughout his adult years. In addition, he suffered a series of misadventures and persecutions as a follower of Jesus. Tradition holds that he was ultimately executed for his faith. Clearly, Christ's forgiveness and the gift of reconciliation with God that Paul claimed to have because of his faith in Jesus didn't make his life easier. In fact, it had the opposite effect. In one of his New Testament letters, Paul recounts some of his experiences as a follower of Jesus:

Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches. (Second Corinthians 11:24-28)

It all could cause a person striving to follow the God met through Jesus Christ to ask, "Why?" Or, to at least ask God to change things, to make life a bit easier.

We know of at least one source of suffering that did incite Paul to ask God for relief. It was an unspecified "thorn in the flesh," an affliction that may have been physical, emotional, relational, or spiritual. We simply don't know what it was. That may be for the best because the fact is that no matter what the source of our suffering in life, the impact on us is amazingly similar. Paul talks about his thorn in the flesh in Second Corinthians:

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong. (Second Corinthians 12:2-10)

According to Paul, God refused to remove suffering that had come to him from Satan. Why? To keep Paul from becoming filled with spiritual pride.

If Paul is to be believed, God allows even devoted believers to be hit with suffering and tragic circumstances as a means of protecting them. Protecting them from what? A famous passage from the Old Testament says, "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall" (Proverbs 16:18).

A few years ago, former President Bill Clinton published his memoirs and discussed his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, a liaison that nearly shattered his presidency and deeply wounded his second term in office. Clinton said that he'd had that affair simply because he was capable of having it. Period.

Sometimes we can become full of ourselves, mistakenly thinking that our successes or good fortune emanate from our talents, innovativeness, cleverness, perseverance, tenacity, or charm...never considering that even our capacity for developing such gifts come from the One Who crafted us in our mother's wombs.

The first of the ten commandments in the Old Testament book of Exodus says, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). Theologians from Martin Luther to Paul Tillich and C.S. Lewis have reminded us that whatever is most important to us in life is our god. Speaking for myself anyway, I've found that no false god--be it money, power, sex, houses, cars or whatever--has waged a fiercer war for my ultimate allegiance than one persistently alluring god: Me...My Ego.

Through his suffering and God's refusal to relieve it, Paul was driven to acknowledge his dependence on God for all the best blessings in his life.

I learned this lesson myself on one especially memorable occasion, not from suffering but from weakness. Some time before, I was invited to give a presentation to a group in metropolitan Cincinnati. For months, I thrashed over what I would say to them. After a good deal of prayer, I created an outline for my presentation. But on the morning of the presentation, just hours before I was scheduled to speak, I woke up feeling flu symptoms. I was achy all over, felt as though a temperature was coming on, and in spite of a good night's sleep, fatigued. On top of that, I simply sensed that my presentation wasn't what the group needed to hear. And so I prayed, "God, You know better than I do. Guide me. Fill me with Your Spirit. Get me through this thing physically. And put Your words in my mouth."

The appointed moment came. I was given an introduction that was so complimentary, I was tempted to look around the room to see who'd been selected to speak in my place. I approached the microphone. I hardly remember what I said. But God was in it. The post-presentation Q-and-A session went well. So did the luncheon conversation. I came home gratified, if exhausted.

But if I hadn't awakened feeling so crummy and insecure, I might have gone ahead with my planned presentation. It may have gone okay. Then though, I would have learned to depend on myself rather than on God.

From his thorn in the flesh, Paul learned reliance on God. Sometimes God allows the innocent to suffer because it's only through our weakness that the greater power of Christ can dwell in us and touch the world around us. It also may prevent us from declaring our independence from God, inciting us to keep the door of our hearts and wills open to the God Who has an eternity of good He wants to pour into our lives.

One last point. No loving Christian would ever tell another person that their suffering is being allowed by God to teach the suffering friend a lesson. That would be arrogant and un-Christian.

Remember that Paul gained insight as to why God refused to heal him of his thorn in the flesh not in conversation with others, but in his own personal prayer interchange with God. The insight that some of our suffering may be from God is a personal one, between God and the sufferer alone. The very best thing we Christians can do when others talk with us about their suffering is keep our pie holes shut, listen, and offer to pray for them.

God willing, more tomorrow...

When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 2 (Rerun)

[Here, I present, with some modification, the second part of a series I first wrote back in November, 2004. I hope that you find it helpful.]

In my first post on this topic, I said that it's natural for us to wonder why we suffer because somewhere in the recesses of our collective DNA, there is this notion that our lives are meant to be good and eternal.

But even if it's natural for us to do so, is it right for us to ask, "Why?"?

Years ago, a friend of mine attended the funeral for a young man who had been killed in an accident. My friend, a committed Christian, was appalled by what he saw among the parents and siblings of the dead young man. They were going around praising God for the death, saying that their loved one was now in heaven, and asking mourners wasn't it all just too wonderful for words? "They were in complete denial, Mark," my friend told me. I think that he was right.

It is true, of course, that followers of Jesus Christ live and die with hope. I love what Paul says in the New Testament book of First Corinthians:

"...Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ..." [First Corinthians 15:20-22]

and

"If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." [First Corinthians 15:19]

When I preside over funerals, I often tell the families and friends of the people who have died: "If what we say about Jesus conquering death for all who believe in Him isn't true today, it simply isn't true at all."

Jesus isn't just our Lord when life is going well and we're living large. He's also our Lord when this world hands us its worst. That's because we believe that on an Easter Sunday two-thousand years ago, Jesus rose from the dead, certifying His power to deliver on all His promises, even beyond our deaths and our funerals.

But no matter what our hope and no matter how sure we are that "all who call on the Lord shall be saved" (Acts 2:21; Psalm 55:16; and other places), we still experience loss when loved ones die, or when we lose our health, a job, or a marriage, or when we experience any tragedy. It's normal even for Christians to experience grief.

The New Testament tells us to "give thanks in all circumstances," not for all circumstances. In other words, our circumstances may be lousy or painful, but we can be thankful that even in those times, the God we know through Jesus Christ is with us.

Although my friend attended the funeral I mentioned many years ago, I still wonder why that family reacted as they did to their loss. Maybe they were taught that any other reaction would reflect faithlessness, a lack of trust in God. Maybe they thought that an angry God would punish them in some way.

If they entertained such thoughts, they obviously hadn't spent much time reading the Bible. Back when I was moving from atheism to faith in God, I spent some time exploring the Bible as I never had before. One thing that kept striking me me then was how honest the Bible is. No facts are sugar-coated. Great heroes of faith---from David to Moses and Peter and Paul---are seen warts and all.

And when people of faith mentioned in the Bible encounter mysteries about God and about life with God, they honestly own up to being confounded and confused. In the Old Testament's book of worship songs, the Psalms, for example, there are whole genres of songs called laments: community laments and individual laments. In them, believers in God express sadness and bafflement at their suffering. They complain about the seeming inactivity or insensitivity of God. In Psalm 13, for example, the psalmist talks to God:

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all day long? [Psalm 13:1-2]

If any believer was worthy of being zapped on the spot, at least according to religious thinking, it was the writer of those words, traditionally held to be David, a person the Bible describes as a "man after God's own heart." But God didn't zap David.

A man named Job didn't get zapped either. His story is told in a lengthy and eloquent book of the Bible's Old Testament. Job was such a good man that God bragged about him. But in rapid order, Job was subjected to a series of personal tragedies. He lost his vast property and land holdings, all his children were killed, and he became afflicted with a disease. At first, Job seemed to handle things well, insisting that he would keep worshiping and serving God. But, understandably, Job broke. He never stopped believing in God. But, despite the saying, "the patience of Job," Job exhibited a lot of impatience...with his circumstances, with other people, even with God. And neither the Bible or God reproach Job for that!

Three friends came to visit him and for a time, simply allowed Job to "vent," sharing his feelings of sadness and grief and mystification that a good God would allow all this to happen to him. It was then that Job's friends made a huge mistake. They tried to explain what had befallen Job. In a nutshell, they were sure that Job was guilty of some secret sin and that God was punishing him. While Job wouldn't have claimed perfection for himself, he was sure that the friends' explanations were off-base. He tells them, "If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!" (Job 13:5) (I laugh every time I read those words, remembering with embarrassment and regret all the stupid explanations I've tried to offer for the bad things that have happened in my own and in others' lives.)

Job then complains bitterly to God and about God. Given their "theology," Job's friends may have felt vindicated in their "explanations" of Job's plight. They may also have considered moving a few feet away from Job just in case a stray lightning bolt from heaven hit them.

In the end of the book of Job though, God responds to all that Job and his friends have said. But God offers no explanations. First, God upbraids the friends for pretending to know what they couldn't possibly know, for judging their friend Job as worthy of all the suffering he was enduring. He even tells them that they were wrong and that Job, who they'd accused of being impious and unbelieving for expressing anger with God, was right!

Then, in a long discouse, God reminds Job of a few simple facts: God is God, Job isn't, and no matter what, God would be with Job.

In a way, that may not seem like an especially satisfying resolution. But, remember Paul's words, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied." [First Corinthians 15:19] This life, consequential as it may be for eternity is just a blip on our journeys. Paul, a man who certainly had a lot of suffering in his life, said in another place:

For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. [Second Corinthians 4:17-18]

Ultimately, every person I have ever observed to have come to a place of peace in dealing with life's tragedies has done so because they've adopted an eternal perspective. They know that this life isn't all there is to life and choose to trust God in spite of the mysteries and unanswered questions. And in the midst of those mysteries, they discover comfort in knowing that the God of all creation is with them always.

Summing up this post:

1. It's normal for us to grieve.

2. It's normal for us to ask God why we suffer.

3. God won't zap us for wondering why we suffer.

4. Even when we grieve, we have an eternal hope when we trust Jesus Christ as our God and Savior.

5. God is God.

6. We're not God.

7. God is with us.

More on point 7 in my next post. [Use the Comments post below to dialog, give feedback, and tell me if this is helpful at all.]

When Tragedy Hits the Innocent: Part 1 [Rerun]

[This is the first installment of a series I first presented here over three years ago, on November 2, 2004. I'm going to present all its installments over the next several days.]

For several months now, our congregation has been praying for the infant daughter of friends of congregational members. We learned this past week that the little girl died at six months of age.

The question naturally arises: Why?

It's a searing question, whether you're a person of faith or not. For those who claim no faith, as was true of me back in my days as an atheist, the question is thrown down as a gauntlet, a rhetorical salvo meant to be the last word in any debate over, if not God's existence, His power or His compassion.

I can't be critical of atheists and agnostics who ask "Why?" in this way. Years ago, after I had come to faith in the God revealed in Jesus Christ, a woman I've known since we were in junior high school, an atheist, wondered how I could possibly believe. She pointed to all the suffering that goes on in the world and asked, if there were a compassionate and loving God, how I could claim faith in Him. It's been my experience that most agnostics and atheists are people with good hearts, offended by the pain that they see in the world and unable to see how an omniscient, loving God could stand by and seem to observe it all passively.

In fact, it strikes me that many who resist faith in God are by and large, more compassionately attuned to the agonies endured by majority of the human race over the course of human history than are many people of faith. I have greater respect for the honest resister of faith who resists because he or she cares about people than I do for the pew-sitters who mindlessly embrace church membership because their parents were church members. Whether it's a simple case of the zeal of a convert or not, I've also found that most former atheists or agnostics make more passionate, compassionate Christians than most church members who receive their "faith" by osmosis or family habit.

In coming posts, I hope to address the question of why good or innocent people suffer in some detail. I also hope to delve into some of the other issues surrounding the experiences of undeserved suffering we can go through in life. For today, I simply want to deal with why we ask the question, "Why?"

One of my seminary professors, the systematic theologian Walter Bouman, used to tell us that in spite of all the progress the human race has made through the centuries, the ratio of births to deaths is still running one-to-one. (A line I've lifted from him countless times in the twenty-plus years I've been preaching!)

Death and tragedy are and have been constant companions of the human race for most of history. Yet, we seem to view each death as a cruel, unfair encroachment on our happiness and the happiness of the one whose life is snuffed out. We see the death of young people as particularly tragic, a violation of the proper order of things.

In spite of the pattern of tragedy and sadness we see in the world (and in our newspapers) each day, illnesses, hurricanes, earthquakes, marital breakups, youthful rebellion, crime, crooked politics, job losses, mass starvation, genocide, abuse, and a whole host of other tragedies throw us off. They make us yearn for "getting back to normal," as though "normal" was a life devoid of these events, a life to which we've been usually accustomed.

In fact, sadness and tragedy seem to be the normal state of things in the world. So, it's curious that we find sadness and tragedy so offensive and hurtful. Shouldn't we be used to it?

No, I don't think that we should. I believe that deeply embedded in our collective DNA is the memory of a time when tragedy and sadness weren't part of the human experience. We weren't meant to live under their shadows. Somehow, deep within each of us, there's an awareness that life is meant to be good. And so, we're right to be offended when tragedy strikes. In an ultimate sense, it is unnatural.

The opening chapters of the Old Testament book of Genesis contain two different accounts of the creation of the universe by God. However you interpret those chapters, a few facts emerge:

1. God is good. It's in the nature of God to give. After all, God gave the gift of life to everything from the frilled lizard to human beings. Creation is a voluntary act of giving on God's part.

2. God's creation is good. God says that it is, repeatedly. And when God fashions human beings, He looks at everything He's created and declares it all, "very good!"

3. Death wasn't part of the human scene until the first human beings deliberately rebelled against God's will. That had consequences. In fact, the New Testament book of Romans says that because human beings are the pinnacle of creation, its caretakers, the whole universe groans under the burdens and consequences of human sin.

(Keep in mind that God doesn't mete out punishment every time we sin. Thank God for that! But sin is an inborn disease with which every human being is afflicted at birth. That has its results, evident in all of us.)

If we are offended by the tragedies of this world, it's understandable. Until sin entered our world, tragedy and death were foreign to our lives. No one who asks, "Why?" should feel ashamed. Human tragedy offends God, too.

More tomorrow...

Thanks to...

John Schroeder and Todd M. for linking to this post on why the innocent suffer.

You might also be interested in a series I wrote on this topic. Here are the links to each installment:
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 1
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 2
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 3
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 4
The Light of the World!

Why Do the Innocent Suffer?

[This is a slightly updated version of a column I first wrote back in 2003. Consider it a condensed version of this series. I hope you find this column helpful.]

Why do bad things happen to innocent people?

Like almost everyone, I guess, I have seen really good people, believing people, and children, subjected to crushing difficulties, afflicted by illness, or taken far too early by death. Maybe you’re one of those good or believing people or children who have been hit by undeserved suffering or grief. You may be inclined to wonder, “Where is God now? Why am I left to fend for myself in the face of this overwhelming pain?”

I’m not sure that I have any answers. But I do have a few responses.

My first response is that you’re not alone.

When God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He underwent suffering. The New Testament book of Hebrews describes Jesus as humanity’s “high priest,” the bridge between God and us. Through Jesus, we have access to God’s help, even in tough times. Hebrews assures us that in Jesus, “we don’t have a high priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)

When we’re knocked down by suffering, the God we meet in Jesus Christ “gets it.” God understands our pain. And He promises to be with those who see Him as their Lord “to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20).

The second thing I want to tell you is to ignore those who try to say that every bad thing that happens to you is your fault. It isn’t!

There are times when bad things do happen to us as the result of our bad decisions. There are also times when God, as a loving Father, disciplines us, thwarting us when we rebel against His will. But don’t let anyone tell you that the loving God of the universe is waiting to wallop you with a cosmic sledge hammer for every mistake you make. God is no monster!

Jesus’ followers—disciples—once pointed a blind man out to Jesus and asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus said neither the guy’s parents or he were guilty of a sin that caused his blindness. Instead, Jesus said that God allowed the man to be blind so that God’s glory could be seen in the man. Jesus proceeded to give the man sight. (John 9)

Sometimes, God allows us to keep suffering even after we’ve prayed. But in these circumstances, it's likely that God’s motive is the same as Jesus’ motive for healing the blind man: to let us see Him at work in our lives. One of Jesus’ followers in Bible times was a man named Paul. We don’t know exactly what it was, but Paul said that he suffered from what he called a “thorn in the flesh.” In the New Testament, he says that he asked God to remove it three times. God refused. As Paul explains it, “...[God] told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’” (Second Corinthians 12:1-10)

God makes our suffering count for something when we go through it with Jesus Christ: He teaches how we can rely on Him and He shows His goodness and power to others through us. On this latter point, it’s been my observation that often, as Paul sensed God telling him of Paul's suffering, it’s in those who suffer with Jesus that we most clearly see the presence and power of God.

Only heaven can be described as “paradise” (Luke 23:43). That’s the ultimate destination of all who follow Jesus Christ. This temporary home we call earth and the life we live here will never be a paradise free of suffering. But it is a place where we can know God intimately, experience fulfillment, love and encourage each other, and go through every high and low with God beside us.

Suffering may never make sense. But God’s love is always there for us.

When Tragedy Hits the Innocent

With the collapse of the I35W bridge in the Twin Cities, this seems like an appropriate time for me to present links to a series I wrote several years ago, When Tragedy Hits the Innocent:
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 1
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 2
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 3
When Tragedy Hits the Innocent, Part 4
The Light of the World!

I'm praying that God will encourage those who mourn with the hope of Jesus' resurrection and that God will sustain all who involved in the recovery efforts.