this is an emotional subject
This subject scares a lot of people. Even Christians. But we must deal with it.
I'm not going to try to brush this subject away. I'm not going to run away from it, either. We Christians want to be able to answer the question that's been haunting mankind for countless generations.
"Why did my mother die?"
"Why would God let that co-worker steal my father's project and cost my dad a promotion?"
"Why are all of those African kids living in poverty?"
"Why did that tsunami hit Japan and wipe out those fishing villages?"
Poll after poll has shown that the number one question people would ask God would be "Why do You allow evil on the earth?"
Let's take a responsible look at this.
I'm not going to try to brush this subject away. I'm not going to run away from it, either. We Christians want to be able to answer the question that's been haunting mankind for countless generations.
"Why did my mother die?"
"Why would God let that co-worker steal my father's project and cost my dad a promotion?"
"Why are all of those African kids living in poverty?"
"Why did that tsunami hit Japan and wipe out those fishing villages?"
Poll after poll has shown that the number one question people would ask God would be "Why do You allow evil on the earth?"
Let's take a responsible look at this.
discussion #1
I was trying to meet a publisher’s deadline, and I was stuck on a bit of research and needed help. In a moment of inspiration, I grabbed the phone and called a former professor from my university days. He was more than willing to help me, bless him.
But the phone call was painful to hear. His speech was halting, choppy and agonizingly slow.
“Y-you … see… Brad … th-that would take you … back… to the … n-nineteen f-fifties… and … and … if you look…”
My former professor was in the throes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His body was slowly shutting down, bit by bit. He struggled for breath – a man with an active mind trapped inside a deteriorating shell. After I hung up the phone I spent the better part of an hour staring out the window.
He was such a beloved man. He was kind and energetic, always reaching out. Why him?
It wasn’t long before he passed away. Around the world, countless numbers of his students mourned.
I recalled the days when I was a youth pastor and spent numerous hours working along the decrepit lanes of a backroads trailer park. There were good people, fine folks who were barely scratching out an existence. Some of the
trailers had gaping holes in the floor, most had windows that were duct-taped to keep out the cold. The children were raw-faced and hungry. Some were abused. I would often drive home at night, weeping over what I had witnessed.
Why doesn’t this stop?
Our senior pastor dies of cancer.
A college student loses his wife and four daughters in flood waters.
A humble and generous businessman is stricken with a grotesquely aggressive arthritis that leaves him malformed.
Good people suffering.
Why doesn’t this stop? God, why do You allow this to continue?
Why doesn’t this stop?
The Great Unanswered Question of this age – and ages past.
Or… is it really unanswered?
As a Bible teacher, I am asked this question constantly, and one of the first things I say is that I don’t know. My opinion is of no effect. My intellect cannot grasp this. You’re asking me for a definitive answer? I’m an idiot. 1 Corinthians 13:12 agrees with me when Paul notes “all that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” In other words, until I get to Heaven I cannot grasp the breadth of this subject, so I cannot respond.
But my God can respond.
He tells us that this problem of evil – by both humans and by nature – did not catch Him by surprise. He knew that the floodgates of suffering would open after the failure of mankind to follow Him. Evil in the world is not a surprise to God. When He came to earth in the flesh – we know Him as Jesus – He made the very clear statement about the reality of suffering. He said in John 16:33, “You will have suffering in this world.”
Well, the simple and straightforward question is “Why didn’t God merely create a world where tragedy and suffering didn’t exist?”
The answer is He did.
The opening narrative of the creation of everything (found in the book of Genesis) says “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
Very good.
The Hebrew word meh-ode means excessively good. Above-and-beyond good. Overflowingly good.
And the capstone on that magnificent creation was that God opened the door to his creation, man, and invited him to participate and enjoy.
But He didn’t force him through the door.
Mankind was given a choice. That’s what true love is – a choice. Accept or reject.
Here is the Great Risk.
God, in His infinite power, could have forced us – but denying us a choice eliminates the whole concept of love, doesn’t it? We see ‘forced love’ in such despicable acts like arranged marriages and rape.
God gave us the right to refuse the doorway invitation. Two spiritual mentors of my youth decided to turn away from Him and pursue their own paths. God took The Risk and allowed them the choice, no matter how painful it was to Him.
God saw the rejection and even gave an even louder invitation through salvation offered through Jesus. John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 are just a few of the passages that show us that The Invitation is still good, no matter what shape we’re in. We can make the choice to go toward Him.
But mankind wanted their own universe, away from God.
And what a mess man’s universe is. Like a child who imagines that they can create a mansion out of sticks and mud, the comparison is embarrassing. It’s a disaster, in many senses of the word.
But the phone call was painful to hear. His speech was halting, choppy and agonizingly slow.
“Y-you … see… Brad … th-that would take you … back… to the … n-nineteen f-fifties… and … and … if you look…”
My former professor was in the throes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. His body was slowly shutting down, bit by bit. He struggled for breath – a man with an active mind trapped inside a deteriorating shell. After I hung up the phone I spent the better part of an hour staring out the window.
He was such a beloved man. He was kind and energetic, always reaching out. Why him?
It wasn’t long before he passed away. Around the world, countless numbers of his students mourned.
I recalled the days when I was a youth pastor and spent numerous hours working along the decrepit lanes of a backroads trailer park. There were good people, fine folks who were barely scratching out an existence. Some of the
trailers had gaping holes in the floor, most had windows that were duct-taped to keep out the cold. The children were raw-faced and hungry. Some were abused. I would often drive home at night, weeping over what I had witnessed.
Why doesn’t this stop?
Our senior pastor dies of cancer.
A college student loses his wife and four daughters in flood waters.
A humble and generous businessman is stricken with a grotesquely aggressive arthritis that leaves him malformed.
Good people suffering.
Why doesn’t this stop? God, why do You allow this to continue?
Why doesn’t this stop?
The Great Unanswered Question of this age – and ages past.
Or… is it really unanswered?
As a Bible teacher, I am asked this question constantly, and one of the first things I say is that I don’t know. My opinion is of no effect. My intellect cannot grasp this. You’re asking me for a definitive answer? I’m an idiot. 1 Corinthians 13:12 agrees with me when Paul notes “all that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.” In other words, until I get to Heaven I cannot grasp the breadth of this subject, so I cannot respond.
But my God can respond.
He tells us that this problem of evil – by both humans and by nature – did not catch Him by surprise. He knew that the floodgates of suffering would open after the failure of mankind to follow Him. Evil in the world is not a surprise to God. When He came to earth in the flesh – we know Him as Jesus – He made the very clear statement about the reality of suffering. He said in John 16:33, “You will have suffering in this world.”
Well, the simple and straightforward question is “Why didn’t God merely create a world where tragedy and suffering didn’t exist?”
The answer is He did.
The opening narrative of the creation of everything (found in the book of Genesis) says “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”
Very good.
The Hebrew word meh-ode means excessively good. Above-and-beyond good. Overflowingly good.
And the capstone on that magnificent creation was that God opened the door to his creation, man, and invited him to participate and enjoy.
But He didn’t force him through the door.
Mankind was given a choice. That’s what true love is – a choice. Accept or reject.
Here is the Great Risk.
God, in His infinite power, could have forced us – but denying us a choice eliminates the whole concept of love, doesn’t it? We see ‘forced love’ in such despicable acts like arranged marriages and rape.
God gave us the right to refuse the doorway invitation. Two spiritual mentors of my youth decided to turn away from Him and pursue their own paths. God took The Risk and allowed them the choice, no matter how painful it was to Him.
God saw the rejection and even gave an even louder invitation through salvation offered through Jesus. John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 are just a few of the passages that show us that The Invitation is still good, no matter what shape we’re in. We can make the choice to go toward Him.
But mankind wanted their own universe, away from God.
And what a mess man’s universe is. Like a child who imagines that they can create a mansion out of sticks and mud, the comparison is embarrassing. It’s a disaster, in many senses of the word.
discussion #2
High school junior Terry sat in my classroom at lunchtime and exploded in anguish. It was good thing the door was closed; he was facing the whiteboard, literally shouting and screaming, throwing his hands in the air in agitation.“Why is God allowing this to happen? My aunt is a saint, man, an absolute saint! She’s a good woman, never done anything bad to anybody! Why does she have such a brutal cancer?” He took a breath and turned toward me. “There are wicked people in the world who openly mock God or abuse children or cheat honest people out of thousands of dollars. They live the high life, and here’s my aunt dying slowly of cancer. Why would God do this to her? Why?”
This went on for days and weeks. I listened. I walked slowly through the Scriptures. This isn’t something you rush; Terry’s aunt was suffering greatly. So was Terry.
On one occasion, Terry sat back, exhausted from his tirade. “So, Doc,” he said, pulling his chair in my direction, “Have you ever asked God why He does this kind of stuff?”
This kind of stuff.
Yes, I remembered a very vivid time. I shared with Terry the time I left a safe and secure local church ministry position to take a dream job in publishing as head writer for a whole new national ministry. I had created a youth group discipleship program, and a Christian publishing company had caught wind of my project – they wanted to make it a nationwide outreach. From the first day I set foot in the building, the dream came true, above and beyond anything I could imagine. Our books and programs were selling like hotcakes; the project sold more than anything else in the company’s twenty-five year history. The initial plan was to establish the ministry in ten states within a year; we accomplished that in less than seven days. We were in thirty states and Canada within the first month. I was on the road or in a plane virtually every week, traveling and speaking to youth groups, camps, conferences and churches across the country.
And the whole thing imploded within eleven months.
The head of the company was caught red-handed in a scandal and wouldn’t go down without a fight. Paranoia set in, and we all because casualties. I, a newcomer, was collateral damage and lost my job. In fact, in order to cover their tracks, the company brass enacted a smear campaign on a number of us through a nationwide letter campaign. My wife and I were getting phone calls at our home on a nightly basis from all over the country – from people we considered friends, mind you – berating us and ending their relationship. We stared at each other in disbelief, crushed by the avalanche of events. Worse yet, the company booted me out and kept my idea. It had taken me five years to develop the program and it was gone, just like that.
The dream had become a nightmare.
Why, Lord? I was doing Your work. I worked long hours. I sacrificed. And this is the thanks I get?
Terry was able to see that none of us are immune to suffering and disappointment.
As I sat writing this, my wife came into my office with a letter from our friend “Miriam”, a dear mother who survived a horrible divorce but was able to keep custody of her elementary age children … until now. The heartbreaking letter told us that she lost her children to her ex-husband; she has no idea where the children are.
Why, Lord? Miriam only wants to serve You and have a good family. Why this?
I feel I should tell you these stories because I don’t walk into this subject in a cold, calculating manner. This question hits close to home. To my friends. To my family. To me.
So let’s talk seriously.
God grieves over man’s pain as well.
Despite the skeptics’ claim of a cold, calculating God, Ezekiel 18:32 tells us that God gets no pleasure from the downfall of any sinner. Jesus, who told us “…he that has seen me hath seen the Father…” (John 14:9), openly wept over the death of Lazarus as well as all of the lost and wandering people of Jerusalem. God Himself actually crying! In Exodus 32, Moses pleaded and directed God to activate His heart of mercy for the rebellious people – and God opened up and responded with that heart of mercy.
1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Not that He has love, or He activates love, but that He is love. Consider the fact that in this Creator’s realm, love is the highest relational value in the universe. He could have forced us to love Him, but that would be hellish. Remember, love is impossible without choice.
Absolutely impossible. Without choice.
So God placed His very own Omnipotence on a balancing scale that mankind could tip. Man could reject the Creator of All Things.
I refer you to yesterday’s Great Risk. God placed the option solely in our hands. We can accept or reject. It must be that way, or else we are puppet-string beings. Mankind decided to forego the perfectness of God and venture into his own self-made universe, which brought us this current mess we call today’s society.
You say, “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why did He create evil?”
He didn’t.
He created the opportunity for evil when He gave us a choice.
Consider the theologian Augustine’s thought: “Evil is not as a thing in and of itself, but as a parasite on good. Something that is lacking is not a thing in itself.” For instance, Augustine says, if you have a hole in your clothing, the hole is not something, but rather is something that is lacking. Augustine considered evil something that is missing. It requires good to exist because it is a parasite.
I was driving through the city with a college student who was an aggressive agnostic. “Why would God create evil?” he burst out.
“He didn’t,” I replied.
“Yes, he did,” he countered. “God created all things, right? Well, he created evil.”
“I see that you’re stuck on this,” I said. “You think God in creation made things sort of like this: rock, tree, cat, river, evil.”
The student got quiet.
“Am I right?” I asked. “You think evil is a solid, greasy object, a brick-like entity that God made during the week of creation, and it lurks somewhere where people can get infected by it.” He didn’t reply so I continued. “So let me ask you – how much does a left-hand turn weigh?”
“What?” His eyebrows raised.
I repeated. “How much does a left-hand turn weigh? Is it measured in ounces? Pounds? Tons?”
He shook his head. “That’s illogical. It’s not tangible.”
“Well, then,” I went on, “if I go to the hardware store, how much will I pay for loyalty? Or if I get an idea, how tall is it, in feet or yards, perhaps?”
“I told you,” he said, “that’s is illogical. Those are intangibles. Those are concepts that cannot be grasped by human hands.”
“So it is with evil,” I said. “Let’s stop assuming that evil is a tangible creation of God, and let’s move on to the fact that it is the result of a choice. We have a lot of ground to cover, but we must get the definitions correct.”
He slowly shook his head. “Okay, fair enough. I get it.”
This went on for days and weeks. I listened. I walked slowly through the Scriptures. This isn’t something you rush; Terry’s aunt was suffering greatly. So was Terry.
On one occasion, Terry sat back, exhausted from his tirade. “So, Doc,” he said, pulling his chair in my direction, “Have you ever asked God why He does this kind of stuff?”
This kind of stuff.
Yes, I remembered a very vivid time. I shared with Terry the time I left a safe and secure local church ministry position to take a dream job in publishing as head writer for a whole new national ministry. I had created a youth group discipleship program, and a Christian publishing company had caught wind of my project – they wanted to make it a nationwide outreach. From the first day I set foot in the building, the dream came true, above and beyond anything I could imagine. Our books and programs were selling like hotcakes; the project sold more than anything else in the company’s twenty-five year history. The initial plan was to establish the ministry in ten states within a year; we accomplished that in less than seven days. We were in thirty states and Canada within the first month. I was on the road or in a plane virtually every week, traveling and speaking to youth groups, camps, conferences and churches across the country.
And the whole thing imploded within eleven months.
The head of the company was caught red-handed in a scandal and wouldn’t go down without a fight. Paranoia set in, and we all because casualties. I, a newcomer, was collateral damage and lost my job. In fact, in order to cover their tracks, the company brass enacted a smear campaign on a number of us through a nationwide letter campaign. My wife and I were getting phone calls at our home on a nightly basis from all over the country – from people we considered friends, mind you – berating us and ending their relationship. We stared at each other in disbelief, crushed by the avalanche of events. Worse yet, the company booted me out and kept my idea. It had taken me five years to develop the program and it was gone, just like that.
The dream had become a nightmare.
Why, Lord? I was doing Your work. I worked long hours. I sacrificed. And this is the thanks I get?
Terry was able to see that none of us are immune to suffering and disappointment.
As I sat writing this, my wife came into my office with a letter from our friend “Miriam”, a dear mother who survived a horrible divorce but was able to keep custody of her elementary age children … until now. The heartbreaking letter told us that she lost her children to her ex-husband; she has no idea where the children are.
Why, Lord? Miriam only wants to serve You and have a good family. Why this?
I feel I should tell you these stories because I don’t walk into this subject in a cold, calculating manner. This question hits close to home. To my friends. To my family. To me.
So let’s talk seriously.
God grieves over man’s pain as well.
Despite the skeptics’ claim of a cold, calculating God, Ezekiel 18:32 tells us that God gets no pleasure from the downfall of any sinner. Jesus, who told us “…he that has seen me hath seen the Father…” (John 14:9), openly wept over the death of Lazarus as well as all of the lost and wandering people of Jerusalem. God Himself actually crying! In Exodus 32, Moses pleaded and directed God to activate His heart of mercy for the rebellious people – and God opened up and responded with that heart of mercy.
1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Not that He has love, or He activates love, but that He is love. Consider the fact that in this Creator’s realm, love is the highest relational value in the universe. He could have forced us to love Him, but that would be hellish. Remember, love is impossible without choice.
Absolutely impossible. Without choice.
So God placed His very own Omnipotence on a balancing scale that mankind could tip. Man could reject the Creator of All Things.
I refer you to yesterday’s Great Risk. God placed the option solely in our hands. We can accept or reject. It must be that way, or else we are puppet-string beings. Mankind decided to forego the perfectness of God and venture into his own self-made universe, which brought us this current mess we call today’s society.
You say, “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why did He create evil?”
He didn’t.
He created the opportunity for evil when He gave us a choice.
Consider the theologian Augustine’s thought: “Evil is not as a thing in and of itself, but as a parasite on good. Something that is lacking is not a thing in itself.” For instance, Augustine says, if you have a hole in your clothing, the hole is not something, but rather is something that is lacking. Augustine considered evil something that is missing. It requires good to exist because it is a parasite.
I was driving through the city with a college student who was an aggressive agnostic. “Why would God create evil?” he burst out.
“He didn’t,” I replied.
“Yes, he did,” he countered. “God created all things, right? Well, he created evil.”
“I see that you’re stuck on this,” I said. “You think God in creation made things sort of like this: rock, tree, cat, river, evil.”
The student got quiet.
“Am I right?” I asked. “You think evil is a solid, greasy object, a brick-like entity that God made during the week of creation, and it lurks somewhere where people can get infected by it.” He didn’t reply so I continued. “So let me ask you – how much does a left-hand turn weigh?”
“What?” His eyebrows raised.
I repeated. “How much does a left-hand turn weigh? Is it measured in ounces? Pounds? Tons?”
He shook his head. “That’s illogical. It’s not tangible.”
“Well, then,” I went on, “if I go to the hardware store, how much will I pay for loyalty? Or if I get an idea, how tall is it, in feet or yards, perhaps?”
“I told you,” he said, “that’s is illogical. Those are intangibles. Those are concepts that cannot be grasped by human hands.”
“So it is with evil,” I said. “Let’s stop assuming that evil is a tangible creation of God, and let’s move on to the fact that it is the result of a choice. We have a lot of ground to cover, but we must get the definitions correct.”
He slowly shook his head. “Okay, fair enough. I get it.”
discussion #3
In November of my freshman year at college, we received the news about a tragedy that occurred at Toccoa Falls College in Georgia. Days of torrential rains had weakened the earthen dam holding back 139 million gallons of Kelly Barnes Lake overlooking the TFC property. In the middle of the night, the dam burst and a monster wave headed straight for the Christian college campus. A 30-foot wall of water roared over the top of the waterfall, carrying boulders and tree trunks as it destroyed everything in its path. The raging floodwaters smashed into the campus, killing at least 39 people. Students were trapped in dorm rooms, suffocating under mud and water. Trailers were flipped and demolished. The pictures we saw were horrifying.
Many of these students were mission-minded, intending to serve the Lord in local churches or on the mission field.
These were good people. Why would God allow them to die?
This wasn’t the cause of evil done by man, either. This was an act in nature, or as some people might say, “an act of God.”
Why, oh, why are there horrible things like floods, tornadoes and earthquakes?
I won’t cheapen the discussion by giving you my opinion. The only way we can approach satisfaction is by seeing what God Himself says through His Word. I see two powerful passages that deal directly with it in a no-nonsense way.
I first see that God has allowed the earth to show sin’s results; He has let creation display the repercussion that evil has brought. Much the way the tragic presentation of a car accident is tangible evidence of drunken driving, the natural disasters are evidence of what mankind’s rejection of God has done to us all. I am intrigued by the teaching of Romans 8:19-21:
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
When man fell into sin due to his rejection of God’s invitation, the result had worldwide consequences – in the literal sense. Nothing escaped the malfunctioning we brought on, including the world we inhabit. Rather than glory and perfection, the earth’s natural disasters show its frustration and decay. Sin brings the individual death and suffering; it also brings the world earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and other painful results. We wait for deliverance from this, and guess what – so does creation. The same passage tells us that the creation around us “groans” and “travails” and awaits the delivery. The allegorical implication to the birth of a child is powerful. Our earth is not in dying pain – it’s in birthing pain.
There’s a second thing I see – a lesson we’re supposed to take from this. So how does this ‘natural disaster’ thing work? Do people who are more spiritual get to hang around and dodge the bullets of earthly catastrophe?
That very question came up in the thirteenth chapter of Luke. People were asking about calamity and trying to figure out whether this is a universal lottery – if your number comes up and you’re not spiritual ready, you get the axe.
In answering them, Jesus addressed a well-known incident where a tower in Siloam collapsed, crushing eighteen people. “Do you suppose they weren’t as holy as others?” No, he says, it’s to get your eyes on your mortality – and prepare for eternity. “Repent, or you too will perish”. Does He mean that if we don’t straighten up we’ll have a tower fall on us – or a tornado sweep us away? No, Jesus patiently teaches, the key is to repent. The whole lesson is to prepare yourself for the life beyond and make your decision on where you want to go. You want God? Then follow His plan of salvation. You don’t want God? That’s your choice entirely. But mark the truth that was whispered to the greatest Roman conquerors by the slaves who accompanied them in their victory parade: memento mori – “You too shall die.”
The second century saint, Irenaeus felt that something you might call “soul-making” comes out of suffering. He felt that God allows disasters to occur, because people’s suffering leads to righteousness. I am not sure how far I would follow that line of reasoning, but I do know that these incidents bring people to a standstill, to a time where they take stock of the brevity of life. Remember how many people packed into your church after 9-11? Sure you do – you no doubt set attendance records. Of course that was not a natural disaster, but you get the idea – people whispered the oft-repeated phrase to themselves: That could have been me.
If it would have been, would you have been able to face the God of all eternity?
Catastrophes often wake us up to a vision of getting right with God.
In my high school years, a teammate on our wrestling squad was victim to a tractor accident. Only a month after his high school graduation, John lay in an ambulance, bleeding to death. His final words to his mother were “I know I’m dying. I’ll see you in Heaven.”
His words had an impact.
I know, because they impacted me.
They were the catalyst for me to take stock of my life and realize I was in need of salvation in Jesus. It wasn’t long before I knelt in my bedroom and made a decision to turn my life over to the Savior.
Many of these students were mission-minded, intending to serve the Lord in local churches or on the mission field.
These were good people. Why would God allow them to die?
This wasn’t the cause of evil done by man, either. This was an act in nature, or as some people might say, “an act of God.”
Why, oh, why are there horrible things like floods, tornadoes and earthquakes?
I won’t cheapen the discussion by giving you my opinion. The only way we can approach satisfaction is by seeing what God Himself says through His Word. I see two powerful passages that deal directly with it in a no-nonsense way.
I first see that God has allowed the earth to show sin’s results; He has let creation display the repercussion that evil has brought. Much the way the tragic presentation of a car accident is tangible evidence of drunken driving, the natural disasters are evidence of what mankind’s rejection of God has done to us all. I am intrigued by the teaching of Romans 8:19-21:
“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
When man fell into sin due to his rejection of God’s invitation, the result had worldwide consequences – in the literal sense. Nothing escaped the malfunctioning we brought on, including the world we inhabit. Rather than glory and perfection, the earth’s natural disasters show its frustration and decay. Sin brings the individual death and suffering; it also brings the world earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and other painful results. We wait for deliverance from this, and guess what – so does creation. The same passage tells us that the creation around us “groans” and “travails” and awaits the delivery. The allegorical implication to the birth of a child is powerful. Our earth is not in dying pain – it’s in birthing pain.
There’s a second thing I see – a lesson we’re supposed to take from this. So how does this ‘natural disaster’ thing work? Do people who are more spiritual get to hang around and dodge the bullets of earthly catastrophe?
That very question came up in the thirteenth chapter of Luke. People were asking about calamity and trying to figure out whether this is a universal lottery – if your number comes up and you’re not spiritual ready, you get the axe.
In answering them, Jesus addressed a well-known incident where a tower in Siloam collapsed, crushing eighteen people. “Do you suppose they weren’t as holy as others?” No, he says, it’s to get your eyes on your mortality – and prepare for eternity. “Repent, or you too will perish”. Does He mean that if we don’t straighten up we’ll have a tower fall on us – or a tornado sweep us away? No, Jesus patiently teaches, the key is to repent. The whole lesson is to prepare yourself for the life beyond and make your decision on where you want to go. You want God? Then follow His plan of salvation. You don’t want God? That’s your choice entirely. But mark the truth that was whispered to the greatest Roman conquerors by the slaves who accompanied them in their victory parade: memento mori – “You too shall die.”
The second century saint, Irenaeus felt that something you might call “soul-making” comes out of suffering. He felt that God allows disasters to occur, because people’s suffering leads to righteousness. I am not sure how far I would follow that line of reasoning, but I do know that these incidents bring people to a standstill, to a time where they take stock of the brevity of life. Remember how many people packed into your church after 9-11? Sure you do – you no doubt set attendance records. Of course that was not a natural disaster, but you get the idea – people whispered the oft-repeated phrase to themselves: That could have been me.
If it would have been, would you have been able to face the God of all eternity?
Catastrophes often wake us up to a vision of getting right with God.
In my high school years, a teammate on our wrestling squad was victim to a tractor accident. Only a month after his high school graduation, John lay in an ambulance, bleeding to death. His final words to his mother were “I know I’m dying. I’ll see you in Heaven.”
His words had an impact.
I know, because they impacted me.
They were the catalyst for me to take stock of my life and realize I was in need of salvation in Jesus. It wasn’t long before I knelt in my bedroom and made a decision to turn my life over to the Savior.
discussion #4
I’m sitting in our kitchen on the morning of Friday the 20th of February, 2015, and it is 3 degrees Fahrenheit outside. The heating fellow came two days ago and inspected our unit. He went to work immediately and the part should be here by this weekend.
Yes, it’s true. On the coldest February week in over a hundred years in Tennessee, our entire heating unit broke down. Oh, no, this didn’t happen in October or November when the weather was playing about in the forties or even in December when we were being teased with just-freezing temps in the mid-thirties. Nope. It’s this week.
It’s about five-thirty in the morning. I am sitting next to an open oven on full-blast as I type this entry, and blankets are draped over the entryways to doorless rooms we will not use until it gets warmer.
We’re corralling the heat into the most necessary rooms. My wife and child are in bedrooms with space heaters churning like mad. Through the last two nights I have stumbled out of bed every two hours to go and check on all of the faucets throughout the house, making sure they are dripping and we don’t have a water pipe burst. (On the right is a sign my wife Jill posted in our hallway to remind ourselves of the various faucets to monitor through the Nights of the Arctic Freeze.)
And we are laughing about it. Jill, who suffers from the weaknesses of fibro myalgia, has taken on this whole trial like it was a vacation at a Minnesota wilderness lodge. Two nights ago at a few minutes after midnight, the electricity failed in our entire section of town. This had the potential for danger; I hustled the family members out of their beds and into the main living room in front of our small but determined fireplace while attaching more blankets over doorways. My ten-year old Julianne spent the night snoozing on the sofa under sleeping bags; she called it “the greatest night ever.” At first I questioned whether the chill had frozen their sanity, but I soon saw that this was sort of comical. Sort of.
The temperatures are finally climbing, slowly but surely. I am breathing a sigh of relief and realizing that we’ve been through a pretty stiff challenge and hey, it’s brought us closer together. I am thankful that we didn’t lose heart during this challenge. In a way, this whole event has been funny.
But some Christian people aren’t laughing about their trials, and I cannot blame them.
In North Carolina I went to the home of a sixtyish Believer who spent virtually every waking hour taking care of her once-active, world-travelling husband who was now in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, merely staring at the ceiling and clutching a stuffed bear so his fingernails wouldn’t dig into his palms.
In Arizona I was introduced to a gentleman whose arthritic condition worsened year by year, slowly developing him into a hunchback. His head was literally below his shoulders as he walked.
In Tennessee I shared coffee with a Christian family who were reeling from their son’s defiant walk away from the faith into a world of meth and atheism. His law-breaking activities were a weekly event, and he was openly unrepentant.
In my class halls I walked with a senior who had lost his teen sister to a horrible car accident. Her death was immediate – he never got to say goodbye.
On and on.
Let’s talk about good, fine Christians who face trials. Long, drawn out tests. Why would God put His children through such trying ordeals? Let me refer to the incidents I just mentioned.
One point that I observed is that each one had an amazing trust in God. With every one of the above incidents, I went away deeply moved by the powerful faith emanating from each person under trial. It was as if their faith and trust in Christ were an illumination to the room. They weren’t flippant by any means, nor were they in an emotive, giddy mindset about a cartoon Heaven with marshmallow clouds. These people were facing the grit and pain of a world with hurt and sadness… on a daily basis.
These people, though, had Christ in their sights. That’s the most accurate way I can tell you. They kept Him in their vision and relied on His hope to carry them. They talked about Jesus and His strength, glorifying God and so help me, every time I met them they seemed to have been getting stronger since my last visit. You might say that they had a consistent Heavenly vision.
That brings the second point – that the world had very little appeal to them. Their trial had soured the taste of this world. Not that this world became unreal; it had lost its temporal pull on them. They knew the glory ahead, so they continued on in faith. Amazing stuff – it reminds me of the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians,
“We do not lose heart, even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”
Many, many times I have seen monstrous faith out of Christians who undergo the backbreaking long-term strain of a tragedy or trial. What kind of faith am I talking about? A true and vivid faith of an eternal reward in the life to come. Paul was explaining that each of his sufferings was gaining for him an eternal weight of glory. He was unflinching when it came to the world’s grasp. He lost the taste for the temporal.
“We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Verse seven calls our bodies “vessels of clay.” Verse eleven says we’re wearing “mortal flesh.” Pretty descriptive. Spot-on accurate.
Paul knew what he was talking about when he mentioned trials. Check out chapter eleven. Paul was robbed. He was shipwrecked. He was whipped. He was imprisoned. He was beaten. He took on stonings, drowning, and ordeals in the desert. These things just intensified his vision for God and His glory.
When I was in South Dakota I met Carl, a Christian who owned a construction business. When he was climbing down in a digging in order to inspect a pipeline, the five-foot trench collapsed on him. Workers frantically tried to dig him out with shovels but realized they were losing precious time; Carl couldn’t breathe underneath that avalanche of dirt. In desperation a construction worker drove a trench digger to the mound and used the gigantic metal claw to start scooping up yards of dirt. He was taking a guess as to how close he could place the metallic arm before he took a scoop, but he didn’t have time to be overly careful. He was able to get the claw to dig a hole right next to Carl’s face, but in the rush to save his life, the worker had actually torn off Carl’s right arm at the shoulder. The doctors were able to reattach the arm, but Carl would never be able to do any sort of physical work after that. His life was one of pain medication and physical therapy.
But oh, was this man’s faith powerful. His continuing trial brought him into a rich and deep devotion to God that stunned me. I sat up most of the night at his kitchen table hearing this man praise the Lord in quiet and deeply moving rhetoric.
Carl talked of his desire for heaven and, until then, his daily ministry here on Earth. He shared the power of the tenth chapter of the second Corinthians letter in its description of ridding ourselves of imaginations that lead us away from God and His glory, and letting our thoughts become focused on Christ. I glanced at his arm, an arm that would never be used properly. He caught my stare.
“I used to say that I’d give my right arm to have peace in my heart,” he smiled at me, patting it. “Well, I actually did.”
I almost choked at the unexpected joke.
“And you know?” he continued. “It was – and is – worth it.”
Yes, it’s true. On the coldest February week in over a hundred years in Tennessee, our entire heating unit broke down. Oh, no, this didn’t happen in October or November when the weather was playing about in the forties or even in December when we were being teased with just-freezing temps in the mid-thirties. Nope. It’s this week.
It’s about five-thirty in the morning. I am sitting next to an open oven on full-blast as I type this entry, and blankets are draped over the entryways to doorless rooms we will not use until it gets warmer.
We’re corralling the heat into the most necessary rooms. My wife and child are in bedrooms with space heaters churning like mad. Through the last two nights I have stumbled out of bed every two hours to go and check on all of the faucets throughout the house, making sure they are dripping and we don’t have a water pipe burst. (On the right is a sign my wife Jill posted in our hallway to remind ourselves of the various faucets to monitor through the Nights of the Arctic Freeze.)
And we are laughing about it. Jill, who suffers from the weaknesses of fibro myalgia, has taken on this whole trial like it was a vacation at a Minnesota wilderness lodge. Two nights ago at a few minutes after midnight, the electricity failed in our entire section of town. This had the potential for danger; I hustled the family members out of their beds and into the main living room in front of our small but determined fireplace while attaching more blankets over doorways. My ten-year old Julianne spent the night snoozing on the sofa under sleeping bags; she called it “the greatest night ever.” At first I questioned whether the chill had frozen their sanity, but I soon saw that this was sort of comical. Sort of.
The temperatures are finally climbing, slowly but surely. I am breathing a sigh of relief and realizing that we’ve been through a pretty stiff challenge and hey, it’s brought us closer together. I am thankful that we didn’t lose heart during this challenge. In a way, this whole event has been funny.
But some Christian people aren’t laughing about their trials, and I cannot blame them.
In North Carolina I went to the home of a sixtyish Believer who spent virtually every waking hour taking care of her once-active, world-travelling husband who was now in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, merely staring at the ceiling and clutching a stuffed bear so his fingernails wouldn’t dig into his palms.
In Arizona I was introduced to a gentleman whose arthritic condition worsened year by year, slowly developing him into a hunchback. His head was literally below his shoulders as he walked.
In Tennessee I shared coffee with a Christian family who were reeling from their son’s defiant walk away from the faith into a world of meth and atheism. His law-breaking activities were a weekly event, and he was openly unrepentant.
In my class halls I walked with a senior who had lost his teen sister to a horrible car accident. Her death was immediate – he never got to say goodbye.
On and on.
Let’s talk about good, fine Christians who face trials. Long, drawn out tests. Why would God put His children through such trying ordeals? Let me refer to the incidents I just mentioned.
One point that I observed is that each one had an amazing trust in God. With every one of the above incidents, I went away deeply moved by the powerful faith emanating from each person under trial. It was as if their faith and trust in Christ were an illumination to the room. They weren’t flippant by any means, nor were they in an emotive, giddy mindset about a cartoon Heaven with marshmallow clouds. These people were facing the grit and pain of a world with hurt and sadness… on a daily basis.
These people, though, had Christ in their sights. That’s the most accurate way I can tell you. They kept Him in their vision and relied on His hope to carry them. They talked about Jesus and His strength, glorifying God and so help me, every time I met them they seemed to have been getting stronger since my last visit. You might say that they had a consistent Heavenly vision.
That brings the second point – that the world had very little appeal to them. Their trial had soured the taste of this world. Not that this world became unreal; it had lost its temporal pull on them. They knew the glory ahead, so they continued on in faith. Amazing stuff – it reminds me of the fourth chapter of 2 Corinthians,
“We do not lose heart, even though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”
Many, many times I have seen monstrous faith out of Christians who undergo the backbreaking long-term strain of a tragedy or trial. What kind of faith am I talking about? A true and vivid faith of an eternal reward in the life to come. Paul was explaining that each of his sufferings was gaining for him an eternal weight of glory. He was unflinching when it came to the world’s grasp. He lost the taste for the temporal.
“We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, the things which are seen are temporal, the things which are not seen are eternal.”
Verse seven calls our bodies “vessels of clay.” Verse eleven says we’re wearing “mortal flesh.” Pretty descriptive. Spot-on accurate.
Paul knew what he was talking about when he mentioned trials. Check out chapter eleven. Paul was robbed. He was shipwrecked. He was whipped. He was imprisoned. He was beaten. He took on stonings, drowning, and ordeals in the desert. These things just intensified his vision for God and His glory.
When I was in South Dakota I met Carl, a Christian who owned a construction business. When he was climbing down in a digging in order to inspect a pipeline, the five-foot trench collapsed on him. Workers frantically tried to dig him out with shovels but realized they were losing precious time; Carl couldn’t breathe underneath that avalanche of dirt. In desperation a construction worker drove a trench digger to the mound and used the gigantic metal claw to start scooping up yards of dirt. He was taking a guess as to how close he could place the metallic arm before he took a scoop, but he didn’t have time to be overly careful. He was able to get the claw to dig a hole right next to Carl’s face, but in the rush to save his life, the worker had actually torn off Carl’s right arm at the shoulder. The doctors were able to reattach the arm, but Carl would never be able to do any sort of physical work after that. His life was one of pain medication and physical therapy.
But oh, was this man’s faith powerful. His continuing trial brought him into a rich and deep devotion to God that stunned me. I sat up most of the night at his kitchen table hearing this man praise the Lord in quiet and deeply moving rhetoric.
Carl talked of his desire for heaven and, until then, his daily ministry here on Earth. He shared the power of the tenth chapter of the second Corinthians letter in its description of ridding ourselves of imaginations that lead us away from God and His glory, and letting our thoughts become focused on Christ. I glanced at his arm, an arm that would never be used properly. He caught my stare.
“I used to say that I’d give my right arm to have peace in my heart,” he smiled at me, patting it. “Well, I actually did.”
I almost choked at the unexpected joke.
“And you know?” he continued. “It was – and is – worth it.”