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Falsely Defending God
David Leach
Few, if any of us get through this life without very real pain and suffering. The settled view of a wise Christian concerning suffering will be that God is sovereign, and that none of us are promised a problem free walk down the twisting path of life. A Christian who is mature and is familiar with the Scripture will realize that salvation provides no exemption from the various and sundry ills of a fallen world. Nevertheless, living in a hedonistic culture that extols the notion of “the victim,” there is a temptation to feel as though we “deserve better,” and that we ought be excused (since we are such Good Christians) from unpleasant experiences. Have we not placed our welfare in God’s hands after all, and has He not promised us untold blessings and that He cares for us as a Father? If so, whence suffering? Why sorrow? So many of us, when life meets us with darker times are found to utter, not unlike our non-Christian neighbors – “Why me?”
Well…why not you? Has God promised you a pass from disappointment, failure, financial losses, injury or illness? Has He promised you that your children will not die before you or that your spouse will always be faithful? Has God orchestrated a life for you uniquely without sorrow? I rather doubt it.
Since it is true that Christians suffer genuine hardship, difficulty and tragedy in this life…why is it that sometimes other Christians will come to them saying “God had nothing to do with this.” Or, “This is not what God wanted, this is the devil.” Or, “God is on our side, this is just a bad luck, or fate, and not God’s will.” I read recently of a woman who lost her husband and only child in a car accident, and a Christian friend wrote her something like “God didn’t have anything to do with that!” Why do we wish to defend God as though He is hapless and caught unawares and that these dark experiences are not “dark providences” but rather “dark misfortunes” outside the controlling reach of God?
My question is, if God has nothing to do with these bad things, how is He sovereign? How is He omniscient and omnipotent? Those who “defend” God by advising that He is to be exonerated from responsibility in the hard issues in life, do not understand the Scriptures, nor do they understand God aright. I have been at funerals and other places of sorrow where someone has spoken up and said, “This was not God’s will.” Such statements are foolish and ill advised. How does this finite spokesman speak thus for God? How does He pretend to know God’s plans and devices? It is a grand and loving thing to share the burdens of those who suffer with the grief of loss and disappointment, but it is harmful, and ignorant to try to soften the hardness of grief and sorrow with a false exoneration of God. God neither needs nor solicits our complete understanding of His purposes in such matters. God is dishonored when we seek to defend and explain Him by suggesting he cannot direct and control His creation. Seize any opportunity where men find failure in God to instruct them more perfectly: God is sovereign, even in the dark places.
Love it!
As we were reminded during our sermon series on Ruth, in chapter one: Naomi and her family had fled the Promised Land because of drought. In the foreign land her husband died. As a woman in the time and place, she had not much hope. But God is sovereign, and provided pagan women for her sons. And in the providence of God, they died. So when things are bad, trust God – they may get worse.
All such lessons must be in the context of the end of days – as that is what the book of Ruth and all of Scripture point us to. Christ has come to save His people from their sins and He will come again, to judge the nations and make all things new – and we who are found in Him will be free from sin and temptation and grief, to the endless praise of His glorious name!
“Well…why not you? Has God promised you a pass from disappointment, failure, financial losses, injury or illness? Has He promised you that your children will not die before you or that your spouse will always be faithful? Has God orchestrated a life for you uniquely without sorrow? I rather doubt it.”
I believe that God, in His wonderful condescension, that He feels our pain, our frustrations, our doubts, yes, even in our finances, injury, illnesses, in our boredom. He has not promised that our children will not die or that our spouse will always be faithful, but is He not the one who knows and understands our pain? Of course God has not orchestrated lives for us uniquely without sorrow, but His compassion is glorious, sweet, merciful, and perfect. I think you know this better than I do!
However, I think what you said is a pretty solid wake-up call. And I cringe when I hear people say, “God had nothing to do with this,” too. I believe this is a good, hard word that people should hear.
Sometimes, if you only stick with this single perspective, without graciously mentioning God’s compassion, some people may become spiteful and reject what you hearing–not just because they’re wicked sinners who hate hearing the truth, though nobody should count that out completely, but because we’ve failed and neglected to bring up one of God’s equally important attributes. There are those who say “God is love” that pat people on their back as they go on the road to destruction, and those who say “God is just” that scare and anger people so that they refuse to walk down the path to righteousness. I think that’s what happens when we focus on one aspect of God too much without bringing up the other.
This whole topic of God’s Sovereignty…I am always amazed that so many seem to grasp this aspect of His nature, while still, I struggle to understand. Actually, I like that He’s Sovereign; I don’t rebel against it; just don’t know how to think about truly horrific things in the world…child rape, human trafficking, animal torture…I’m not quieted by the usual explanation I hear…”This is all the result of man’s fallen nature”…I don’t understand “God’s part” in these things. Admittedly, I spend large amounts of time mentally struggling with this issue, as I want to KNOW HIM as He really is, and am not on the brink of abandoning faith, simply because I don’t understand! This seems to be my roadblock, and I don’t know how to navigate it.
Denise – I believe that God’ sovereignty provides a mighty rock of assurance against the (seemingly) random ordeals we all encounter. The evil amongst Adam’s offspring is indeed tied to the fall, and certainly none of us, this side of heaven, are very much privy to the purposes of pain and suffering, nor the reasons for the types of responses (or even apparent lack of responses) of God. Call me nuts, but I am comforted knowing that even the darkest experiences of humanity are overseen by a Good God. That I do not understand them or that I am not able to explain them all – at least for me – does not in the slightest diminish the glorious awareness of God’s absolute control.
…and Amen.
Thank you. And yes, it is so very comforting, to be able to rest in the certainty, that tho “the worst” might befall us, that ultimately, He IS in control, and that never does He allow pain without a loving plan…However, I personally have never been the recipient of torture, being burned at the stake, etc….Comparatively speaking, life’s every day trials are easily submitted to…I shouldn’t fret, I know, but it sometimes makes me awfully sad, wondering, just under what conditions could I deny Him? It breaks my heart, to think that I could…it’s got to be, that the fact of God’s complete directing hand in our lives, has to be so real, so accepted and known by us, that in our hour of temptation, we won’t faint. I can think of nothing worse than dishonoring Him.