“Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:17)
My daughter’s automobile accident brought many scars—physical, mental and spiritual—and a lot of questions. During a recent visit, she looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Dad, why did God allow me to hurt like I did?”
Of all the questions she asked, that had to be the toughest one to answer. Clearly, Victoria is paying a heavy price for not having buckled her seatbelt. She sustained eight broken bones, endured two major operations, and is now coping what is known as survivor guilt, the hard reality of how fortunate she is to be living when two other occupants of the vehicle died. All that being said, the only answer I could give her was to explain that God’s love for us is expressed through the gift of free will. In other words, He allows us to make our own decisions about how we live. And when we make the wrong ones, He promises to love us through the pain and tragedy that may follow.
I didn’t very much like that answer. At the time, it seemed shallow and incomplete. But if you think about, it really makes sense and is an explanation for much of what troubles our world.
The Book of Genesis tells us that in the beginning, the earth was “formless and empty”. (Genesis 1:2) In other words, God’s creative hand gave form and substance to the world in which we live. Our world has laws by which it operates. In fact, Jesus tells us in Matthew 5:18, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” The Law to which Jesus refers is not just the Ten Commandments, but all of the laws which the first five books of the Bible embrace – moral, ceremonial, and natural.
The laws, which govern us, like God, never change. They make no exceptions for either the righteous or the wicked. Their reliability have enabled cures to be found for dreaded diseases like polio and will continue to enable science to find the answers to problems for which there was to be no hope.
Paul tells us in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” In other words, many of the problems that come our may have nothing to do with God’s perfect will. Instead, they are a function of living with consequences of bad choices. God allows them to happen because He has created a world in which we have the freedom to make choices, even wrong choices. They can work to our favor or to our detriment.
When suffering comes, we focus far too much on why it happened. Instead, we should ask ourselves, what do I do now and who is there to help me do it? Only then can we begin to look to God for help and stop holding him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in this world. The Psalmist reminds us: “I lift my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” (Psalms 121:1-2)
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