I have a friend currently going through a crisis within her family, and I’m calling it, it’s not FAIR. It’s not fair when a good loving family, who is making sacrifices to follow the Lord’s call on their life, suffers. It’s not fair when your heart is exploding with compassion and love, and Christ’s likeness just overflows out of you from your head to your toes, and yet you suffer. It’s not FAIR!
I don’t know what to say to her, my first reaction is to explain away the pain with cliché’s like “God will never give you what you can’t handle,” That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” “you are given this burden because God knows how strong you are.” But all those words seem empty so all I can do is be a listening ear, and available. I can PRAY, and boy have my prayers sounded loud and accusatory. “God are you good? God, do you care about your children? God why would you do this? God where are you in this?” So, the question must be asked, why do bad things happen to good people? And why do good things happen to bad people? How many times I’ve wrestled with these same questions, and how many times I believe most everyone else has!
I think the Bible teaches us that there are no easy answers. Thinking of the book of Job, how many times was Job tested, and yet his attitude toward God did not change. He didn’t blame God, instead he clung to him. The problem of evil and suffering is not like the problem of a blocked drain, or an unfinished work assignment, or a losing streak on a football team. It calls for humility on our part – and compassion. Think of Jesus himself, at first glance, our Savior’s death on the cross seems a travesty – an innocent man wrongly accused and put to death. However, God used this suffering for hope to bridge the gap caused by sin’s deep chasm. Jesus stood sinless, yet he was put to death at the age of 33. We can learn the right response to suffering from his teaching, and from the statements he made before and after his trial. John 16:33 says, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Matthew 24:7 says, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.” It is not a pleasant thought, but that is the way life often is in a fallen world. When God made the world, all was well. But suffering entered this world when man decided we knew better than God how to live in it. No Christian would welcome suffering for its own sake, but the Bible makes it quite clear that faith in Jesus Christ does not guarantee a good life, but a perfect eternity.
In our human perspective, tragedies look meaningless, senseless, and chaotic, but God knows how to take even tragedies and crises and bring good out of them. I can’t speak to my friend’s crisis because she is in the middle of it, and it’s not mine. I can however speak to my tragedy that happened in 2002. I was a sophomore at Colorado Christian University when my dad called me to tell me that my grandparents were killed in a car accident. It knocked the wind out of me, and I remember just falling to the floor and my roommates gathering around me and just hugging me while I cried and cried. My dad picked me up that evening and it was a whirlwind of several days while arrangements were made for their funeral. When I finally settled back to school weeks later, I had to make a choice, either their death was going to define me for the worse or for the better. Of course, I worked through my own season of frustration, why did this happen, what did they do wrong, why is this happening to our family, and the list goes on. I was given my grandmothers Bible and I clung to that; page after page I read all the notes she wrote, all the verses she highlighted, and slowly I was growing into what I later came to view as a turning point in my relationship with Christ. I learned how to pray, I learned how to listen to his voice, even during my frustration toward him. I learned how to have faith even when it didn’t make sense. I learned how to stand up for what I believe, even when it didn’t make sense to others.
I made a lot of changes the rest of that school year; I broke up with a boy that wasn’t right for me. I focused on things that were right and good for me. I came out of my timid shell and just really learned a lot about communicating with others. And through that I gained a confidence I hadn’t really had prior to that time. That season started me on other journeys, I changed my major that year from accounting to youth ministries. I still got my minor in accounting and boy has it come in handy every season and every journey I’ve been on. But my heart of hearts to this day is ministering and mentoring teen girls.
The following year I got my first passport, fundraised money for the first time, and took a leap into a world unknown. I went on a 10-day mission trip to Nicaragua, my first time ever out of the country. My first time ever using my compassionate heart serving others, and that trip set up the course of my future. Although during that trip I prayed “God if you get me through these 10 days, I will never do anything like this again.” 🙂 Careful what you wish for!
I have had many other seasons since then that have felt unbearable. But each time God has turned it into something beautiful. Was my grandparent’s accident tragic? Absolutely! But are there good things there were produced in me because of it? Yes! A million times yes!!
Perhaps you are in the middle of a crisis right now. Our world is entering into a crisis right now as I write this. We hurt and, so often, we hurt because we love. There is no love without suffering, and there is no suffering without love. The question is, are we prepared to accept both realities? God did, when he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for all our hurts, all our brokenness, all our sufferings, all our sins, all our fears. Jesus died, for ALL OF US.