1) If they believe in God, then they would probably agree that God is aware of, and allows all events in our lives because He promises that everything will turn out for good if we are obedient to Him. (Romans 8:28)
2) If they don't believe in God, then they probably believe that we are in charge of our own destiny and everything that happens is based on our choices with an element of chance and luck mixed into the equation. There is either no God, or if there is a God He could care less about the details of our lives.
The problem with the first answer is obvious, if God is allowing everything that touches our lives than He is allowing evil to produce pain, tragedy, and death in everyone who is walking the planet. Which either means He is powerless to stop the influence of evil, or He doesn't care who gets hurt in the great scheme of things, or He is allowing evil to run unchecked (it seems) for reasons that He alone can comprehend. This explanation immediately ushers us toward the crossroads of our faith.
Sometimes a refresher course is necessary if we are examining one of the foundations of our faith. For instance, if we believe that God is love, (1 John 4:8) we are left with the explanation that everything that occurs in our lives passes through the hands of all-mighty God, who not only loves us beyond measure but is also capable of preventing and/or healing all the bad things that we are currently facing. When you engage people in deep conversations, more often than not you encounter stories of abuse, neglect, apathy, suffering, even torture and death, sometimes at the hands of those who were supposed to love them the most. How can this be? How can a loving God permit horrific evil to run rampant throughout His creation?
Just as the presence of so much pain and suffering in the world can be a stumbling block to people considering the Gospel, they are also the reasons why many Christians struggle with the concept that God is good. Yet the Bible shows us a God who works powerfully in and through our suffering with the goal of drawing us closer to Himself. Let's examine a story about how Jesus dealt with the issue of pain, suffering and death.
In John 11 we read about the death of one of Jesus's closest friends, Lazarus. The condensed version is that while Jesus is teaching in a town at least a day away, news reaches him that his friend Lazarus is dying. (Lazarus is the brother of Mary and Martha, two of Jesus's friends who are mentioned earlier in the Bible.) Jesus reaction to this news is puzzling to say the least, "When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” Then Jesus made the decision to stay where He was for two more days, where he finally tells His disciples, "Now let's go back to Judea." His disciples quickly reminded Him that the last time He was in Judea the Jewish people tried to stone Him, so perhaps this is not the best idea. But Jesus replied, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Jesus arrives in Bethany after Lazarus had been dead and in the tomb for four days. Picking up our story from the book of John, "When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home. “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.”
Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”
After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and is asking for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who had been with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”
Do you see how a lot of the questions we ask during our times of suffering are present in this story? You have these women of faith, who believe that Jesus is God, but still question why He didn't intervene and prevent their brother from dying. Then you have the onlookers, who could clearly see the depth of love that Jesus had for his friend, but also ask the following question, If He loved Lazarus that much, why did He allow him to die? And you have Jesus explaining why Lazarus wasn't healed from his sickness, "It is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.”
I urge you not to rush through that last sentence for it is one of the keys to surviving and understanding the role suffering plays in all of our lives. God is not a distant God, unfeeling and unmoved by our pain, but He does allow it for reasons we may or may not ever understand. In the case of the death of Lazarus, Jesus clearly explains why He didn't intervene, but that is not always true in our own lives.
As I write this please don't make the assumption that I'm always faithful to trust the hand of God in everything that occurs in my life, and that I quickly move from grief to faith in the process of assimilating the suffering that I personally experience. Instead it has been my personal experience that there is a margin of space in my reaction to suffering, a gap between cynicism and faith, and if I'm not careful this distance will grow, eroding my spiritual worldview, and replacing my faith in the goodness of God with my own perception of fairness.
That conclusion never ends well.
Distance from God will always cause me to question the goodness of God. This is a favorite tactic of the enemy and is enormously successful in derailing many people before they ever come to a saving knowledge of who Jesus really is. But it can be equally damaging to even mature Christians who let down their guard and begin to trust in their own wisdom. (Proverbs 3:5-6) One of the keys to overcoming those seasons of life that threaten our faith is to remember the promises of God, and that He promises to transform even the most horrible of situations into good.
Picking back up with our story, Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave, raising him from the dead in front of a crowd of people, believers and unbelievers alike. Lazarus is reunited with Jesus and his family, proving that Jesus’s power over death is absolute. But what also is curious about this story is how little focus there is on Lazarus himself. Rather, the narrative draws our gaze to profound questions: Why, if Jesus planned to heal Lazarus, did he not just do so in the first place? Why did he let Lazarus die, and leave Mary and Martha mourning for days? Why not tell Martha what he was planning to do right away? In this strange stretching of the story, we get a glimpse of the whole biblical framework for suffering. That space between the time of Lazarus’s death and Jesus raising him from the dead is the margin where our faith must reside.
Recognizing the role of suffering in our relationship with Christ helps us see through a common misconception about suffering from a Christian perspective. We can be tempted to believe that suffering is a punishment for sin. But the Bible is clear that—while sin and suffering are clearly connected in a universal sense, and living in rebellion against God can cause us heartache now—the amount of suffering a person endures is not proportional to his or her sin. The Old Testament book of Job dramatizes this point. Jesus also reinforces this theology. Earlier in John’s Gospel, Jesus encounters a man who was blind from birth, and his disciples ask, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents?” (John 9:2). Jesus replies, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). Then Jesus heals the man.
Notice the common thread of Jesus explanation to people who question Him about the suffering present all around them? Jesus explains that these events were allowed to happen in order to bring glory to God. The advancement of the Kingdom of God is the supreme arch of events in our lives.
This teaching sets Christianity apart from every other world religion. In Christianity, God comes to man, making the sacrifice that enables man to reconcile with God and enjoy an eternity with God. Every other religion points to the efforts of man, toward man working toward redemption, sometimes with no guarantee of the results. Not so in Christianity.
Which leads us to the knowledge that from a biblical perspective, we must reject the idea that if God loves us, He never intends for us to suffer. This premise crumbles on every scriptural page. Time and again, we see those who are chosen and beloved by God suffer during their lives. When Jesus comes, we see that script played out on a cosmic stage: God’s beloved Son, the One in whom the Father is well pleased, comes expressly to suffer and to die out of love for his people.
In closing, lets think about the three acts that most stories progress through toward their conclusion. Most great stories have a second act, the season where the hero loses his strength, perhaps even his hope, and then through a series of challenges and motivations emerges stronger than ever. I'll bet you can recall your favorite movie, TV show, or book and then examine the role that the second act plays in their stories. There is great tension in those moments, not just because of the long journey that has led them to this point, but because of what is at stake. The end game. For instance, do you remember this great quote from Sam from the Lord of the Rings?
“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going, because they were holding on to something. That there is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for.”
God is urging all of us to "keep going, to fight the good fight, for the end will far surpass the suffering we encounter along the way. Don't lose hope during your second act, there will come a day where all of our struggles will pale in the reality of the paradise that we will be experiencing. God is good. And He is for you!
