Tag: Pain

Did I Do Something to Deserve My Suffering?

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People who are struggling can sometimes wonder: Is God angry with me? Is He disciplining me because of some sin in my life? Did I do something to deserve this? These questions become particularly acute when people read biblical stories of God punishing places like Sodom and Gomorrah or Jericho or Babylon or even Israel because of their sin.

The prophet Amos lived during a time of spiritual depravity in Israel. This depravity was masked, however, by general political stability and economic prosperity. Because of these conditions, the Israelites were lured into believing they were experiencing God’s favor. But God called Amos to deliver a damning declaration:

This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane My holy name.” (Amos 2:6-7)

God’s judgment was coming on Israel’s sin. But at the same time such a declaration may sound unsettling, it can also be comforting.

God regularly used the ancient prophets to remove ambiguity about His judgment. People did not need to guess whether God was punishing them because of their sin because the prophets clearly revealed whether God was punishing them because of their sin. In Amos’s case, God even reveals through this prophet the specific sins for which Israel was being punished.

God leaves no ambiguity when it comes to His punishment of sin. As Amos goes on to explains:

When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets. (Amos 3:6-7)

If God brings judgment, He will make known what He is doing. He renders no judgment without revealing whether it is, in fact, His judgment.

You never have to wonder, then, in the face of some struggle or suffering, whether God is angry at you. Or whether He is disciplining you. Or whether you have done something to deserve what you are experiencing. If you are left wondering, you already have your answer: He is not angry with you. He is not lobbing suffering at you out of His wrath toward you. God’s judgment is not meant to be secret or mysterious. Instead, it is designed to be clear so that it can unambiguously call people out of their sin and back to His righteousness.

If you are suffering, God is not judging you. You can know that. But you can also know this: He is with you. He does not remain aloof from you, but comes to you through Christ. If you are suffering, remember that Christ has also suffered. He knows what suffering feels like. And He knows – and cares – what you feel like. His response to your suffering is not judgment, but love.

Permitting and Preventing Suffering

Credit: Job and His Friends by Ilya Repin (1869)

Last week on this blog, I referenced Job and his yearning for resurrection after all the suffering he had experienced. Resurrection to new life after and apart from all the trials and pain we encounter in this life is our ultimate hope. But in the meantime, we still need strength to endure the trials and pain we encounter in this life.

At the beginning of Job’s story, Satan accuses this righteous man before God of only living for God because of what he gets from God:

Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out Your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face. (Job 1:9-11)

In response, God, instead of striking Job, leaves it to Satan, but adds one critical caveat:

Everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger. (Job 1:12)

God sets up a tension with these words. At the same time He permits suffering, He also prevents suffering. Later, when Satan wants to kill Job, God responds:

He is in your hands; but you must spare his life. (Job 2:6)

Again, God permits suffering while also preventing suffering – the ending of Job’s life.

When we suffer, this tension can give us tenacity. While we may remain confused as to why God permits some suffering, we can also rest assured that God is also preventing some suffering. The trouble we have when God prevents suffering is that we don’t know that God has prevented it because we never had to endure it. But even if we cannot immediately know or see when God has prevented suffering, we can be thankful that God does, in fact, prevent suffering. He has told us He does in Job’s story.

It is tempting for us to complain and even curse God when He permits suffering. But as with Job, when God permits suffering, He also has a purpose in suffering. In Job’s case, when he refuses to curse God amid his pain, Satan is proven wrong. His accusation against Job – that Job loves God only because of what God has given him – goes down in defeat. Thus, the suffering that Satan brings on Job is the same suffering that defeats his accusation against Job. So it is with Christ. The suffering that Satan delighted in when Jesus was in agony on a cross is the same suffering that defeated him – along with sin and death – when Christ died on the cross.

May we, in our suffering, pray for God’s purpose when God permits it and give thanks to God when He prevents it. He really does know what He’s doing.

Hope in the Psalms

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Recently, life seems to have been a series of calamities.

COVID continues to ravage the world.

Those still struggling to leave Afghanistan are terrified for their very lives.

Countless communities are struggling to clean up after Ida.

Burnout, hopelessness, and despair feel like they’re everywhere.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about a way forward from all of this. But such a way seems elusive – at least right now.

Of course, calamity in life is nothing new, nor is it anything avoidable.

Theologians have noted that within the book of Psalms, there are different genres of Psalms:

There are Psalms of Praise that honor God for who He is.

There are Wisdom Psalms that offer guidance for and through life.

There are Royal Psalms that give thanks for the ancient kings of Israel and yearn for a coming king, sent by God, who can rule the world.

There are Psalms of Thanksgiving that reflect on the good things God has done.

And there are Psalms of Lament that shed tears when life does its worst to us.

It is, of course, not surprising to read of tears and fears when the Psalmist is lamenting some tragedy. What is surprising, however, is that in even many of the sunny Psalms, there are still notes of melancholy.

For example, Psalm 40 is a Psalm of Praise, but the Psalmist praises God because He has rescued him from a terrifyingly terrible time:

I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. (Psalm 40:1-2)

Psalm 104 also praises God, but nevertheless says of God:

When You hide Your face, Your creatures are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. (Psalm 104:29)

Though the Psalter has a few purely positive Psalms scattered throughout, for the most part, even the happiest of Psalms are salted with notes of need, sadness, judgment, and helplessness.

That is, until you get to the end of the book. The final Psalm sings:

Praise the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary; praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power; praise Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise Him with the harp and lyre, praise Him with timbrel and dancing, praise Him with the strings and pipe, praise Him with the clash of cymbals, praise Him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD. (Psalm 150:1-6)

Here is sheer praise – sheer joy. But it comes at the end of the book.

Though we may have moments in this life of pure joy, like the Psalms, for the most part, our lives are salted with notes of need, sadness, judgment, and helplessness. But the End is on its way when we – yes, even we who have lost our breath in death – will have our breath restored and we will praise the Lord.

As we continue to encounter calamity, may we look forward to that day when we praise God everlastingly.

God’s Presence in Pain

“Gideon Gathering His Army” by Étienne Parrocel (1696–1776)

In Judges 6, the Midianites are warring with the Israelites. The Midianites are so successful in their campaign against Israel that the Israelites head for the hills – literally:

Because the power of Midian was so oppressive, the Israelites prepared shelters for themselves in mountain clefts, caves and strongholds. (Judges 6:2)

But God is preparing to rescue the Israelites from their oppressors. He appears to a man named Gideon and greets him with a flattering title and a promise of his presence:

The LORD is with you, mighty warrior. (Judges 6:12)

Gideon, however, is not dazzled, but dubious:

If the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? (Judges 6:13)

Gideon’s question is a perennial one. When bad things happen to us, it is easy to assume that God has taken a leave of absence from us. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Gideon’s story opens with this setting:

The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD, and for seven years He gave them into the hands of the Midianites. (Judges 6:1)

It turns out not that God was deserting the Israelites, but that the Israelites were rejecting Him. They were turning their backs on the Lord in sin. God sends suffering not because He has deserted Israel, but because He is appealing to Israel: “Repent and turn toward Me!” He wants the Israelites’ suffering to drive them into His arms.

Our suffering can be similar. People sometimes wonder if some suffering they are experiencing is a result of some sin they have committed, as is the case with the Israelites in Gideon’s time. Oftentimes, it is not. Commenting on a recent slaughter of Galileans by Pontius Pilate, Jesus asks:

Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! (Luke 13:2-3)

Jesus is clear that suffering need not be connected to a specific sin. But, in the final analysis, why suffering happens is far less important than what suffering can accomplish. It can drive us to God and strengthen our faith. As Peter writes:

Now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:6-7)

Are you suffering? Are you troubled? God’s words to Gideon are also God’s words to you:

The Lord is with you.

God walks with you in suffering. You are not alone.

Just Passing By

In Mark 6, Jesus’ disciples are sailing across the Sea of Galilee. Late into the night, Jesus decides to hit the water too, but instead of chartering a boat across the lake, Jesus steps out onto the lake. Mark tells the story like this:

Shortly before dawn He went out to them, walking on the lake. He was about to pass by them, but when they saw Him walking on the lake, they thought He was a ghost. They cried out, because they all saw Him and were terrified. (Mark 6:48-50)

Three of the four Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and John – recount this story, but Mark adds a unique detail that is not found in the other accounts when he writes: “He was about to pass by” (Mark 6:48).

This detail reminds us that Jesus is doing much more than simply trying to work a miracle. He is offering His disciples some revelation. He is showing His disciples who He really is.

In Exodus 33, Moses requests to see God. God reminds Moses that although he cannot see Him face-to-face:

There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. (Exodus 33:21-22)

Moses may encounter God, but it will be only for a cursory, partially concealed moment. Moses will only get to encounter God as He passes by.

Likewise, in 1 Kings 19, when God reveals Himself to the prophet Elijah, He says to him:

Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by. (1 Kings 19:11)

After the announcement of God’s arrival, there is a hurricane, an earthquake, and a fire, but God is not in any of these things. Instead, He passes by in “a gentle whisper” (1 Kings 19:12).

Like Moses, Elijah gets to encounter God, but it is only in a cursory, partially concealed way. Elijah only encounters God as He passes by.

This is how God consistently revealed Himself to His people of old – by passing by. So, when Jesus begins to pass by His disciples as they are sailing along on the Sea of Galilee, He is making a claim about His identity: He is the same One who passed by Moses and Elijah. He is God!

But in Mark 6, the story takes a surprising turn. Because instead of being there one moment and gone the next like God was when He revealed Himself to Moses and Elijah, Jesus, as He is about to pass by His disciples, instead:

…climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed. (Mark 6:51)

Before, when God met with His people, He only passed by. Now, when God meets people in Jesus, God gets in.

During difficult and uncertain times – like the ones we are experiencing as a society – it can be easy to wonder: Where is God? Why hasn’t He shown up? Mark 6 reminds us that Jesus does not just pass by us in our pain, in our uncertainty, and in our fear. He gets in. And because God gets in, He and we are all, as the saying goes, in the same boat.

Christianity is unique among the world religions in that it teaches that there is a God who does not just look down on our pain, but actually joins us in our pain. Jesus joins us in the boat.

The seeming absence of God, then, is undone by the presence of Christ. So, if you’re looking for God, you don’t have to look far. He’s right there. And He will not pass you by.