I was having a conversation the other day with someone who
asked, “Why does God allow bad things to happen?” The person who asked,
believes in God, but wondered herself why, if as she said, “God is in control
of everything,” why He allowed sickness and death for young people. Death and
sickness is on our “collective” minds lately with the recent suicide of a young
woman who was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer. My response to her
might surprise you...God ISN’T in control of everything!
WHAT!? Consider the story of Jairus’ daughter and the women
with the flow of blood, both of whom were healed by Jesus Christ. (read Luke
8.40-56) Both women suffered, one for twelve years, the other only twelve years
of age. Both were allowed by God to suffer, one even unto death; one the
daughter of a powerful leader of the synagogue, the other an unknown woman. Both
healed privately by God, but showed publicly to large crowds. Both received a
miracle from God while thousands of others continue in their suffering,
eventually losing their battles with illness. Why did God heal these two women,
while leaving so many others (down through the ages) to suffer?
The answer is that God has given up His “control over
everything” by allowing us to enjoy free will. The reality of life, so
painfully experienced by so many, and why I was asked this question just the
other day, is that God allows many more to suffer than healing them through
some sort of miracle. That makes EVERY miracle special; otherwise we would not
consider it a miracle. What we can learn about the purpose of miracles is in
what happens after the miracle has been made public. The crowd witnesses the
power of God, and they are given the opportunity to believe in Him.
2 comments:
I think that this article is based on an assumption that I would definitely encourage you to question. The assumption is that God does not want you to suffer. Now, bear in mind that not all assumptions are incorrect, rather, all assumptions are not yet proved. This particular assumption - that God does not want us to suffer - is not yet proved biblically.
In fact, when Jesus says, "take up your cross and follow me," he is essentially telling you to take up a torturous method of death and follow him. And where did Jesus go? Essentially he went and died on the cross. What about the disciples who followed him? 10 of the original 12 disciples died horrific deaths because they confessed they knew Jesus. Voice of the Martyrs (an organisation that everyone would benefit from looking up) gives news about the people and people groups who are currently being persecuted because of their faith. It tells of the horrendous things being done to Christ's followers. Do these facts align with the statement, "God doesn't want you to suffer?" well, the only way that the facts align is if you assert that God doesn't want you to suffer, but doesn't have the power to stop it. Which is the conclusion that this article has arrived at.
But I would suggest that the bible does not allow for this conclusion to be reached. Jewish tradition holds that the prophet Isaiah was sawn in two by the evil king Manassah. This is referred to in Hebrews 11:37, where it mentions the torture and deaths of many others who had faith in God. Were these people killed because God didn’t have the power to stop their deaths? No.
Later on in Hebrews 12 it says of Jesus, “He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward.” Jesus didn’t die because God had no power to stop it – he was willing to die because he knew that this world was not his own, and that heaven was worth every ounce of pain that he would experience. Do you know the same thing? Do you know that God is worth the suffering? Do you trust that he will turn ALL things to the good of those who follow him? Even pain and sin? John Piper, an extraordinary theologian, makes the point that the worst sin ever committed in history was when mankind nailed Jesus to the cross, and yet that was the greatest display of God’s power ever seen.
If God can even turn Jesus’ suffering and our sin into something good, shouldn’t we trust that God can use the experiences of woman who had suffered for 12 years and the child of 12 who had died, for good? Can’t he use even our pain for his glory?
As for God’s all surpassing sovereignty, this website lists the numerous verses in the bible that demonstrate God’s sovereignty over all spheres of life: http://www.teachmethebible.info/questions/god/god_in_control.html
I understand that I am just an anonymous commentor on the internet, and if you could see me you would see a short pipsqueak of a girl with no degrees, or authority to tell you what to believe. So I tell you, don’t take it from me. Don’t believe what I’m saying – look it up in the bible, look at what other more respectable Christians say, read about it. But more so, I would warn you not to trust your emotions when interpreting scriptures – don’t rely on your heart to tell you what is real or not, because the heart is deceitful above all things (Jeremiah 17:9).
God bless,
Fran
Frances, first off, it never safe to assume the intent or premise in any of my posts. I make it a point to say what I mean and speak from presented points of view. This post was NOT about whether or not God WANTED us to suffer, but whether or not He was in control of everything. That being said, suffering and death are a direct result of the "Fall" clearly indicated in Genesis 3.16-19. To say that God wants us to suffer is to say He wanted us to "Fall". There is a difference between allowing us to suffer and wanting us to suffer. As fallen human beings we cannot escape suffering, but it is not the desire of God that we suffer. Of course that doesn't mean He cannot make blessing out of the suffering. He does that every day.
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