I have been contemplating pain and suffering and why God allows bad things to happen.
Psalm 123, our reading for today, has four verses.
1 Unto You I lift up my eyes,
O You who dwell in the heavens,
2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress,
Until He has mercy on us.
3 Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!
For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.
4 Our soul is exceedingly filled
With the scorn of those who are at ease,
With the contempt of the proud.
The readings and verses of the Old Testament of the Bible, Genesis to Malachi, are the depiction of God’s first covenant with man. The Books are complex, the names hard to read, and sometimes, the sadness and outlandish nature of the stories are hard to comprehend. Book after book in the Old Testament is about people suffering great loss, murder, famine, sadness, and devastation.
I find the brutality of stories in the Old Testament (sacrificing animals, death of children, destruction of cities and civilizations) makes it hard for me to relate and dare I say causes me to struggle to find meaning in my faith in God. The Old Testament stories many times don’t seem to make sense.
With that said, Christianity has brought about standards and expectations of morality in our society, rights to women and children, and has advanced the betterment of society. Yes, there are sinful Christians who do bad things. But Christians know that our God does allow bad things to happen. There are moments that tragedy stops us in our tracks.
Our brains are wired to try to understand and find meaning. We cannot help but feel loss and devastation when we are hurt or sad. We try to leave feelings of sadness and despair behind as quickly as we can. Certainly, when family or friends suffer during a health episode or unfortunately, sometimes death, we yearn to find meaning. We want to end the hurt and feel better with a sensible explanation.
Here is why I choose to turn to God during times of despair, suffering, or loss. Pastor Andy Stanley stated in a recent sermon that “God allowed the worst possible thing to happen to the best possible person.” Why should I question God’s judgement about terrible things? God sent His only Son to experience grave and unimaginable suffering as a demonstration to us that if we believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, we will live in eternity in Heaven. Yes, very bad things happened to our Savior, Jesus. How can we expect that the God we believe in doesn’t have meaning or purpose for the bad things that happen?
Faith grows through challenge. Faith grows through sacrifice. We appreciate the good times more when we have experienced the bad.
