Letters from Paul

This week as we continue to look at the issue of concurrence, let’s begin where we left off last week.  It is well established in scripture that God is in control of all.  Most Christians, if not the vast majority, subscribe to that view . . . until . . .   So, what is the pause?  This pause occurs when God’s control causes pain and suffering.  These quakes, hurricanes, tornados, and other events affect people.  These disasters are not happening in a vacuum.  At times, people lose everything they own and even their very lives.  Many Christians are ready to sing and proclaim “God is in Control” (by Twila Paris), but when it comes to human suffering then it is another story.  Surely, a loving God would not allow “good and innocent” people (including Christians) to suffer.  What we know is that “good” people do suffer, so then the question is “If God loves us, and it says so in John 3:16, then why is there so much pain and suffering in this life?”

How does one answer this question?  The same way we ought to answer every question in life.  We answer through the lens and light of scripture.  If we rely on our knowledge, our experience, and our philosophy, we are simply fools and we risk the possibility of getting the wrong answer.  When we rely on God, the creator and sustainer of all that is, we will not go wrong.  Let’s take it issue by issue.

1.  Sometimes God’s children suffer because God disciplines them. 

⁷It is for discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. ¹¹For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:7-11)

When my children disobey, I discipline my children. I bring the suffering and they do not believe it is pleasant.  It is supposed to be painful.  I want to deter them from disobeying me again and I want them to remember my instructions.  So, am I unloving? 

2.  When it is not a discipline issue, why doesn’t a loving God keep us from suffering?

Shouldn’t I, a loving parent, simply protect my children from all pain and suffering?  Wouldn’t that be the loving thing to do?  I wonder.  Well, let me ask you a few questions.  Do you make your child do their homework or do you do it for them?  Perhaps you have a teenager and he or she wants to go work out.  That is tough.  It is a struggle to lift heavy weights and it is tiring to do aerobics.  Not only that, but the next day one is usually sore.  Some might even describe it as painful.  So, in order to protect your children from the struggle and soreness, do you go and workout for them?  Here is my point.  Unless we go through rough times . . . we do not grow.

If you are not familiar with the following story, simply Google the phrase, “The half-ton Teen.”  It is the story of the heaviest teenager, Billy Robbins.  I saw a documentary on TLC in regard to Billy.  Do you know what counselors determined once this young man was hospitalized?  They concluded, among many issues, that his mother (Barbara) was loving Billy to death.  Here is just an excerpt from an article written about Billy and his mother.

Barbara Robbins was so devoted to her son she would wait hand-and-foot on him, fetching him armfuls of fattening foods to satisfy his 8,000 calorie-a-day appetite.

In a Channel 4 documentary due to be shown on Monday, Barbara said: ‘He loves hamburgers, pizza, cola, chips, donuts.  He likes good food too though, like broccoli with cheese on top, of course.’

Barbara even bathed her son by hand, after he became overweight to fit in the shower.

She said: ‘I did everything for him because he is my baby.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1109546/Pictured-The-teenage-boy-devoted-mother-overfed-ballooned-half-ton.html

FOLLOW UP:  After having surgery, the doctors made Billy walk several times a day.  Billy and his mother were sobbing because of the hardships the doctors were putting Billy through.  Both almost left treatment until they were confronted by the doctors.  The Robbins’ were told that if they left, Billy would most likely die.

Billy’s life was being ruined, because his mother did whatever Billy wanted, so he would be happy.  This illustration may seem extreme, but the point is that we must go through hardships in order to grow.  We must struggle with learning literature, science, and mathematics or we will be ignorant.  We must strain our muscles or they will never grow.  From our point of view, we might think, “Why is my teacher putting me through this or why isn’t my parent stepping in and doing this for me.  This isn’t fun or pleasant.  This is tough”  Parents and teachers want their children and students to grow, which means the child or student must struggle.

3.  The crux of the issue . . . “Why do bad things happen to good people?”  (Let’s be clear that this blog is not suggesting that some people are “good.”  All have sinned.  Scripture is clear concerning that issue.  This question is usually asked by Person A when Person A’s standard of good has been met by Person B, who is suffering.) 

When people want to know, “Why do bad things happen to good people,” many of them turn to Job.  In Job 1, we are told that Job, was blameless, upright, feared God, and turned away from evil.  I would say he was a pretty good man, and yet; he is about to suffer.  So, who is responsible for that suffering?

In chapter 1, Job found out that all of his family (except his wife) was killed. This is what he said,

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord.  (Job 1:21b)

Was Satan involved??? Absolutely, but Satan was simply a secondary cause. God is the primary mover.  Satan did not have the authority to kill Job’s family.  Later, Job’s health is taken from him and he is covered from head to foot in “loathsome sores.” If you reread the passage you will notice that Satan neither had the power nor the authority to afflict Job.  Satan asked God to stretch out His (God’s) hand against Job.  Job is afflicted and then read Job’s response when his wife tells him to curse God and die.

“You speak as one of the foolish women would speak. Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Now look at the very next sentence) “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”  (Job 2:10).

The previous two quotes are out of the first chapter. Let’s go to the last chapter of Job after the conversations between God and Job. Was Job right in what he said about God?

After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz and Temanite: (Job’s friends) “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you HAVE NOT spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. (Job 42:7)

And then later in that same chapter:

Then came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and ate bread with him in his house. And they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil (disaster) that the Lord had brought upon him. (Job 42:11)

So, why do bad things happen to good people?  The book of Job never answers that question.  What it does tell us is that we are incapable of understanding why God does what he does.  Our understanding, which encompasses our very small and narrow perspective, during our extremely short time on this planet (but a mist – James 4:14) cannot grasp the mystery nor the volume of what God does in order to carry out his plan.

Let’s look at just one recent event, the earthquake in Haiti.  It was horrible.  We saw the pictures of thousands killed and destruction all around . . . and yet; many children, who were orphans growing up in poverty, are now growing up in the United States with families.  It is possible that thousands of people, who have never given to charity, for the first time, gave to help others.  Perhaps many in Haiti heard the gospel for the first time as Christian groups went there to help.  I could go on all day. 

Even if all that is true, do people have to suffer for those things to occur?  I guess the questions I would ask are, “If no one ever suffers, how are we to learn compassion?  If no one is ever poor, how are we to learn charity?  If no one is ever (fill in the blank), to whom and how would we learn to minister?”

One of my more recent reads was “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis.  See if you can identify with this.

My own experience is something like this.  I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down.  At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys.  Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times.  I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ.  And perhaps, by God’s grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources.  But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys:  I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days.  Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear.  God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only be dint of taking everything else away from me.  Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over – I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed.  And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless. – C. S. Lewis

Our God truly is in control of it all.  Even when the storms come and when pain and suffering are left in their wake.  God is still in control.  Perhaps, you have other questions that I did not cover in this blog.  I felt this was already too long.  If you have questions, send them to me, let’s look at scripture, and let’s grow in our faith.