Final Part Why Does God Allow Tragedy and Suffering
Well, we did finish this
lesson Sunday. Very good discussion on the entire lesson. Hayward
Point of Light #4: Our suffering will pale in comparison to what God has in store for his followers.
We can’t always minimize pain and suffering, but it helps if we take a long-term perspective. Look at this verse, and remember they were written by the apostle Paul, who suffered through beatings and stonings and shipwrecks and imprisonments and rejection and hunger and thirst and homelessness and far more pain that most of us will ever have to endure. These are his words:
“For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.” — wait a second: “small and won’t last long”? Five different times his back was shredded when he was flogged 39 lashes with a whip; three times he was beaten to a bloody pulp by rods. But he says, “Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Corinthians 4:17)
Paul also wrote Romans 8:18: “18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.”
Think of it this way. Let’s say that on the first day of 2013, you had an awful, terrible day. You had an emergency root canal at the dentist and the ran out of pain-killers. You crashed your car and had no insurance. Your stock portfolio took a nosedive. Your spouse got sick. A friend betrayed you. From start to finish, it was like the title of that children’s book: Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
But then every other day of the year was just incredibly terrific. Your relationship with God is close and real and intimate. A friend wins the lottery and gives you $100 million. You get promoted at work to your dream job. Time magazine puts your photo on its cover as “The Person of the Year.” You have your first child and he’s healthy and strong. Your marriage is idyllic, your health is fabulous, you have a six-month vacation in Tahiti.
Then next New Year’s Day someone asks, “So, how was your 2012?” You’d say, “It was great; it was wonderful!” And they’d say, “But didn’t it start out bad? Didn’t you go through a lot of trouble that first day?” You’d think back and say, “You’re right. That was a bad day, no denying it. It was difficult at the time. It was hard. It was painful. But when I look at the totality of the year, when I put everything in context, it’s been a great year. The 364 terrific days far outweigh the one bad day. That day just sort of fades away.”
This is not to deny the reality of your pain in this life. It might be terrible. It might be chronic. But in heaven, after about a gazillion days of a perfect life — and with an infinite more to come — if someone asked, “So, how has your existence been?”, you’d instantly react by saying, “It has been absolutely wonderful! Words can’t describe the joy and the delight and the fulfillment!”
And if they said, “But didn’t you have a tough time before you got here,” you’d probably think back and say, “Well, yes, it’s true that those days were painful, I can’t deny that. They were difficult, they were bad. But when I put them into context, in light of all God’s outpouring of goodness to me, those bad days aren’t even worth comparing with the eternity of blessings and joy that I’m experiencing.”
God promises a time when there will be no more crying, no more tears, no more pain and suffering, when we will be reunited with God in perfect harmony, forever. (Remember Revelation 14:2) Let the words of 1 Corinthians 2:9 soak into our souls: “9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” How cool is this promise?
Finally, Point of Light #5: We decide whether to turn bitter or turn to God for peace and courage.
We’ve all seen examples of how the same suffering that causes one person to turn bitter, to reject God, to become hard and angry and sullen, can cause another person to turn to God, to become more gentle and more loving and more tender, willing to reach out to compassionately help other people who are in pain. Some who lose a child to a drunk driver turn inward in chronic rage and never-ending despair; another turns outward to help others by founding Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.
As one philosopher said: “I believe all suffering is at least potential good, an opportunity for good. It’s up to our free choice to actualize that potential. Not all of us benefit from suffering and learn from it, because that’s up to us, it’s up to our free will.”
We make the choice to either run away from God or to run to Him. But what happens if we run to Him?
We used part of John 16:33 at beginning of lesson. Now let’s look at the entire verse: “I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. But be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
In other words, He offers us the two very things we need when we’re hurting: peace to deal with our present and courage to deal with our future. How? Because he has conquered the world! Through His own suffering and death, He has deprived this world of its ultimate power over you. Suffering doesn’t have the last word anymore. Death doesn’t have the last word anymore. God has the last word!
Suffering is a personal problem; it demands a personal response. And God isn’t some distant, detached, and disinterested deity; He entered into our world and personally experienced our pain. Jesus is there in the lowest places of our lives. Are you broken? He was broken, like bread, for us. Are you despised? He was despised and rejected of men. Do you cry out that you can’t take any more? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Did someone betray you? He was sold out. Are your most tender relationships broken? He loved and He was rejected. Did people turn from you? They hid their faces from Him as if He were a leper. Does He descend into all of our hells? Yes, He does
It’s not just that God knows and sympathizes with us in our troubles. After all, any close friend can do that. Any close friend can sit beside us and comfort us and empathize with us. No, Jesus is much closer than our closest friend. Because if we’ve put our trust in Him, then He is in us. And, therefore, our sufferings are His sufferings; our sorrow is His sorrow.
So when tragedy strikes, as it will; when suffering comes, as it will; when we’re wrestling with pain, as you will – and when we make the choice to run into His arms, here’s what we’re going to discover: we’ll find peace to deal with the present, we’ll find courage to deal with our future, and we’ll find the incredible promise of eternal life in heaven.
As I’ve been saying, all of us will go through pain and suffering. Often, we don’t get any warning when a heart attack strikes, or when a drunk driver crosses the centerline, or when a wildfire sweeps through a canyon, or when an airplane loses power. And so the question that needs to be asked is this – “Are we ready?”
Don’t rely on the fact that we come to church or we’ve gone through some sort of religious ritual in the past. The Bible is clear that we can be religious but not be in a relationship with God. Religious activities and affiliations never saved anyone. Salvation comes from knowing Christ personally and receiving His provision for OUR sin and OUR future. It comes from making him OUR Savior, by asking Him to forgive OUR every sin, and by asking Him to lead OUR life.
But it doesn’t happen automatically. It doesn’t come by attending a great church, or being baptized, or taking communion, or hanging out with a bunch of Christians. It comes from deciding in our heart that we want to turn from our sin, to stop trusting in our own resources, and to accept the forgiveness and eternal life that Jesus purchased on the cross and is offering us as a free gift. THAT is how we gain God’s peace and confidence.
So let the pain of that tragedy open our hearts to Christ. Let’s take what was intended for evil and watch God start creating something good from it.
