I meet new people on a weekly basis. It’s just how my job works. Even outside of my professional life, I thoroughly enjoy engaging with humans formerly unknown to me. I like this because I’m searching; looking for minions, friends and potential roommates because I keep losing the latter to marriage. For some reason, they don’t seem to want this guy around after the wife moves in.
I’m fortunate in that I spend my time with a diverse set of people. Some are incredibly white and grew up in Idaho, many of them actually don’t speak English and were born somewhere in Asia, Africa or the Middle East and a few came from the East Coast. Most of these new acquaintances are poor, or hide somewhere in the middle class but occasionally, I find myself rubbing elbows with someone who has money. And by rubbing elbows, I generally mean that my elbow is chafing against their pelvis or lower ribs because they’re that much taller than me. I don’t understand what this rubbing elbows idiom truly is- therefore, it’s a crappy expression.
I could elaborate on the differences for a long time. People really do come in all shapes, sizes, orientations and personalities. But what I’ve been noticing lately is what all of us has in common, and I mean more than body hair or belly fat. I have yet to encounter a person who hasn’t suffered. Just last week, I was introduced to a man whose five sisters had all been kidnapped by some military group in his country. I spoke with a woman who is fighting like hell to avoid another divorce and a friend of mine told me the story of the loss of his fiance to cancer.
Enter in, theodicy.
(theodicy is basically an attempt to reconcile God’s goodness with the evil we see every day)
Is it pretentious to try to explain to somebody why they’ve experienced immense pain? Can I blame it on their free will? Should I say to them, “You messed up and now here are your consequences. Suck it up and try to be less of a tool next time, alright?”
That’s a wretched thing to do. Can I explain that there’s a monster out there, running amok, ruining bar mitzvahs, marriages and quite possibly killing kittens? Mephistopheles doesn’t seem to scare people like he used to, but maybe boogeymen accomplish more when people resolutely deny their existence. Doesn’t such an attitude basically provide them an easy means to becoming a ninja? I know I feel a lot more stealthy when nobody thinks I’m around.
There’s a notion out there that mans’ aches in life are no different from those endured by a mouse who has recently become prey to a hawk. The mouse did no wrong and neither did the bird whose talons crushed the life out of the rodent right before eating its guts. This approach sees the pain and loss not as evil but almost amoral- that is, neither right nor wrong. Tell that to someone who’s going through chemo three times a week and see how much they like you after.
So the question we’re left with is this: Why does God allow bad things to happen?
Ahhh, THE question…
It’s never easy to speak to someone in the midst of their suffering and try to explain why… in fact in my experience it’s often best to just be a good friend.
That being said, ultimately it comes down to God pursuing His glory (1 Peter 1:6-7). This is a hard thing to consider because in our human understanding we observe this to be cold, selfish, and callous.
However if we rightly understand the character of God and our role as image bearers, we can only conclude that because God is perfect, good, love defined, etc… God pursuing His own glory is the greatest act He can, and should do.
When God gets his glory, we get our joy. Even though we suffer, God uses the suffering that we endure (whether it’s self-inflicted or inflicted extraneously) to change us to be more and more like Christ.
We can take comfort knowing that Jesus himself suffered beyond what we’ll ever face and that it was God’s will (Isaiah 53:10) to use that suffering to bring about his purpose of pursuing and revealing His glory.
If the greatest thing God can do is pursue His own glory, then likewise the greatest thing we can do is glorify Him. Let’s examine how we can give God the most glory. I would submit that we glorify God most when we are closest to him in relationship. It is when we are most humble and dependent upon Him that we glorify Him most in our lives.
When we suffer we are given the opportunity to draw closer to God, growing more dependent and humble before Him as he sustains us. Thus the more we suffer, the more opportunity we have to glorify Him in our weakness.
Does God then allow us to suffer in order to glorify Himself?
Yes.
In our sinful, prideful, fallen state, we would never choose to worship God of our own volition (Ephesians 2:5 | Romans 3:10). It’s in His love that he pursues us using whatever means necessary to humble us, save us, transform us and sanctify us.
So I take solace in the words of 1 Peter 5:10 – “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Ha ha, AWESOME. I’m certainly glad you didn’t take the Job approach for an answer, because we’ve all heard that. That said, you sound exactly like John Piper…or any other reformed theologian, for that matter (that isn’t a bad thing). I was contemplating writing another one of these and including a conversation I’d had with several of my clients the other day, wherein I concluded that our response to suffering matters most, because it gives us an opportunity– it gives humans the chance to relate to one another where any other commonalities weren’t readily visible. I talked with a group of people who had all lost family, fled their country, etc. and though there were four different languages in the room, there was an understanding among all of us that each of us is human and deserved to be treated as so. This seems like a great time to remember the second-greatest command, to love our neighbor as ourselves, which of course is right behind loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul strength and mind. I know I’m not doing that time with my refugees justice, but don’t want to dawdle on an emotive experience.
Of course, some can conclude that they’ve suffered too much and they can become bitter over something, even resentful toward others whose experience was different or seemingly better. But when we stop and consider that suffering is arbitrarily handed out, it should help lessen negative feelings, I suppose. Going on to something you said,
“I would submit that we glorify God most when we are closest to him in relationship. It is when we are most humble and dependent upon Him that we glorify Him most in our lives.”
I couldn’t agree more and I think that post-suffering, this is actually easier for many of us (Ps. 51:17), unless of course, we have a bad attitude about things, but I would like to add that when we treat each other with the respect that image-bearers deserve, that glorifies Him whose image is borne.
I must admit that I’m not educated enough to ever completely do this topic justice, but that doesn’t mean I’m smart enough to leave it alone, either. 🙂 BUT the most important point (that you made) is to be a good friend, not necessarily try to correct someone’s theology, at least until they’ve had some time to recover, right? Then we have to lambast them with the truth of it all… 🙂
Hope you and your family are well, friend!
The reformed position on suffering is elegant and merciful and one I’ve come to appreciate greatly. The key for me is knowing that I can’t know, understanding that the are some things that are not meant for me to understand and that God’s sovereignty and goodness perfectly accomplish His perfect will.
And yes, friendship first in the midst of suffering… No be wants their grief to be whimsically reasoned away by a theological argument.
Truth is, we don’t have all the answers.
Some people do think they have all the answers. My response to them involves violence of some sorts, but that’s to be expected. 😉
“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31-32)
Jesus doesn’t tell Peter he will rescue him from Satan, he says he will pray that their faith be strengthened. Sobering, to be sure. But worth remembering. We are all sifted at one time or another. It’s how we handle the sifting that’s important.
“And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” I can see no better reason than this– honestly.
Wow… you really did it. You tackled this! You got some guts my friend.
To fathom suffering from a purely humanistic existence, I think it’s easy to blame others or use it as a reason to deny the existence of God, but isn’t that the exact problem with all of this world? People try to wrap their feeble minds around the mind of the One who provides their very breath at any given moment.
What if the children who are taken early is a gift from God? What if He knows they won’t make the right choice, so He takes the choice out of their hands?
What if the “last really will be first”? What if this life really is just the twinkling of an eye? What if God really does work all things our for His glory?
The real problem is that the lost world wants to be “as god’s.” The same age old problem since Adam and Eve. We want to be in control and without suffering and consequence. I’m not saying I want to suffer, but who doesn’t want to be in control?
I wrote a post about it a while back and used Louis Armstrong as an example of how God uses common things to change the world in a big way. I’m not saying I have the answers, but God’s word isn’t a cop out, it’s the true history of the world. Past, present, and future.
“God’s word isn’t a cop out.” I couldn’t agree more. And I could have offered answers to the question I asked, too, but I genuinely wanted to see what people think! I’m not sure that God would take the choice out of anyone’s hand, but I’m diehard free will over here, will be until I die 🙂 Otherwise, I think you’re right and I’d add that there is suffering for VARIOUS reasons, no single source and God lets it happen because He sees the big picture and knows what He’s working toward. 🙂
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