"What do people mean when they say, 'I am not afraid of God because I know He is good'? Have they never even been to a dentist?"- C.S. Lewis (A Grief Observed)There are certain people I have met in life who seem to have problems in every aspect of their lives. I don't know if this is their own fault due to bad decisions, or if they are just incredibly unfortunate, or if God or Satan simply has it in for them. Whatever it is, I always feel very fortunate in comparison.
I have never had a serious medical issue. Neither has Golden or NJ. We had some close calls in our finances in the past, but we have always been better off than a lot of people I know. We haven't even lacked in friendships. Really, we have not had any horrifically bad situations in our lives. Certainly, we haven't experienced anything that would challenge my faith in God's existence or goodness. I have definitely been angry at God at times, but not because I thought He wasn't good or didn't exist.
Because I have not had horrifically bad experiences in my life, I sometimes wonder how strong my faith really is. It is easy to judge Job's wife for telling him to "curse God and die," (Job 2:9) but I can only imagine the suffering necessary to drive someone who believes in God to say that. When I hear Job's story told, I never really feel that the agony of the statement is given enough credit. There are few quotes in the entire Bible as strong to me as that one because it is so absolute. It was not uttered flippantly.
I have dealt with the issue of pain before, and I can come up with many reasons why pain is necessary. This does not mean that when I am pushed to the brink of despair that it is impossible for me to abandon faith in contrast to what I believe. I can believe in God all I want, but what will that matter if my visceral response is that He is too horrible to serve? I have always wondered how I would really hold up to something truly bad happening to me or someone very close to me.
I also wonder how much grief is necessary for God to complete His work in me or any other person. Do some people go through more than they need to? Do most people fold before it does any good? How do I respond to the man who gives up on God because he believes God gave up on him?
4 comments:
I don't know what drove Job's wife to her finality. I always assumed that she didn't have a relationship with God in the first place to be able to trust in through those times. I never considered that she did and how much she viewed her God as letting her down and not being real when she really needed him.
The moment you say that nothing horrible has happened to you in your life, something horrible happens it seems. "knock on wood"
I have certainly had my share of "bad times" but I've learned that a lot of situation is how you perceive it. Good questions.
Deep thoughts. It seems that some people do suffer more than others for no perceivable reason. I think that is what challenges me most in my thinking about how God works (pre-knowledge vs open theism).
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