TOGETHER Trust God with questions about suffering

Posted: 9/30/05

TOGETHER:
Trust God with questions about suffering

Hurricane Katrina drove a young Tulane student from New Orleans to Texas, where she enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington. “It's just frustrating, feeling like you don't have control over anything,” she said.

Many who fled the Gulf Coast can identify with that response. They are grateful for the kindness they received, but they don't like having to depend on other people. That is understandable. We all want to take responsibility for our own lives and our families. Still, it is worth noting that human pride is a deceptive thing.

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

We think we are in control when we really aren't. We act like we have the world at our feet when we really don't. We are quick to judge how other people respond to crisis when we really don't know how we would respond. Some people escape life's floods on some occasions; others do not. Rains fall on the just and the unjust, Jesus reminds us (Matthew 5:45).

Why do bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people? My simple understanding is this: I am not in control; God is. His ways are beyond my knowing and full understanding (Isaiah 40:27-28). I do not see clearly or understand completely each time something good or bad happens. I do not have to say about evil that it is good. I do not have to say when tragedy strikes my community, my church, my family or me, that it is God's will and I have no questions.

Thankfully, we are not alone before God when we raise questions and cry out in hurt or anger. The Old Testament prophets and the Psalmists have left us the graphic outlines of their complaints, their dashed hopes and their painful losses.

Jesus knows all about our humanity. He carried back into heaven the nail scars and first-hand knowledge of the emotions of the human heart. He cried out in lonely and sorrowful prayer the night before he died: “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:38-39).

The Apostle Paul knew about disappointment, brutal persecution, prayers that did not get answered and people who would not heed his invitation to believe in Jesus Christ and be saved.

So what brought them through? With Jesus–and with us–it's a willingness to trust God. With Paul, it was the conviction that God's purpose in everything that comes, whether good or bad, was to cause us to grow up into the likeness of Jesus (Romans 8:28-29). If you would be like Jesus, it is obvious that you must know something about pain and suffering, criticism and rejection, feelings of abandonment and loneliness. Evil will come. Sorrows will crush the spirit. In Jesus, you see the way to redemption and gladness.

I cannot control what happens to me, but I do have something to say about what happens to what happens to me (Philippians 4:11). When I trust myself and my dreams to God, I can live or die and say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” I can bring my life before God and I can pray, “God, whatever comes to me, I believe you will help me work through it with your care, and at the end I will count on you making me to be like Jesus.”

We are loved.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.