The Haunting Question
By Fran Sciacca
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Issues: The question hunts us and haunts us. But it can be met with truths that keep us going, stronger than ever—even though the full answer remains hidden. |
In words that may be more relevant in the arena of suffering than in any other, Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote, “The child of the light is sometimes found walking in darkness, but he goes on walking.”
Nevertheless, the darkness is real. Lloyd-Jones’s mentor, G. Campbell Morgan, made these comments on Job’s cry of anguish in Job 3: “It is a great lamentation, pulsing with pain, expressive of the meanings of the most terrible of all sorrows: the sense of mystery, the inexplicability of it all.” The “why” of suffering is our most potent assassin, doggedly hunting us whenever our minds allow him.
It would be both foolish and futile to attempt a definitive answer to the question of suffering. Even the book of Job in its forty-two chapters does not contain a complete explanation of the “why” of his intense ordeal. But Scripture does include pockets of truth on this subject that can help us look beyond the surface of our suffering to the center—God himself. Though we cannot know in full God’s motives for sovereignly allowing what seems to contradict what we know of his love, we can discover principles that at least help to sustain us, and to sustain others in their time of need. When all seems darkness, even a flicker can appear as the light of full day.
A WIDER GAP
The first principle is that suffering helps us realize our radical dependence on God.
In the adolescent years of modern science, a concept known as the “God of the gaps” was popular. It held that God was a sort of empirical “fudge factor,” an explanation for the unexplainable. When science could not produce an adequate reason for some process, phenomenon, or concept, this “God of the gaps” could be conveniently hauled out of his closet to plug this gap in man’s knowledge. As modern science matured, these gaps became smaller and fewer in number, until scientists felt God was no longer needed.
In a similar fashion, today’s Christianity tends to phase out God in the arena of faith. In this era of prosperity, technology, and the explosion of information—when our needs are met, our fears eased, and our questions answered—we are speaking of God with less and less affection, even though we may know more about him. The “gaps” in our lives are shrinking, and shrinking right along with them is the realization of our dependence on him who upholds the universe by his word of power. So God continues to use suffering to drive us back to himself, just as he let the Israelites hunger and thirst in the wilderness to convince them of their need for him (Deut. 8:2–5). Paul realized this principle vividly after circumstances drove him to momentary despair:
We do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Why, we felt that we had received the sentence of death; but that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Cor. 1:8–9)
AN ABNORMAL WORLD
A second principle is that suffering serves as a reminder that we live in a fallen, abnormal world, one in which things are not as they should be.
One of the most successful and influential self-improvement books in recent years has been Thomas A. Harris’s I’m OK—You’re OK. Though a heresy underlies the title, it is interesting that the author felt compelled to write on the subject. He apparently knew that many people feel they are not okay—something is wrong somewhere.
When Jesus saw the sorrow of Mary and Martha because of the recent death of their brother Lazarus, he was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled,” and he wept (John 11:33–35). The Greek words John uses in this context convey also the idea of anger. We know that Jesus intended to raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11:4–15), so his weeping could not have been over the loss of Lazarus. Instead, as G. Campbell Morgan stated, “His approach to the grave revealed some of the deepest things in his own attitude. He was troubled in the presence of sin and unbelief which had its final expression in death.” Jesus wept because he knew more vividly than anyone else that this world is abnormal.
Paul amplifies this principle in Romans 8:1–25, where he outlines the effects of man’s sin on creation as a whole. It appears in Scripture that even the physical suffering associated with childbirth is intended by God as a guidepost, pointing the woman back to Eve’s sin in the garden (Genesis 3:16; 1 Tim. 2:13–15).
KEEPING OTHERS ON THEIR FEET
A third principle is that our suffering is God’s program for preparing us to adequately minister to others—to those he has already scheduled to be a part of our future.
Paul reminds us that God is “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:3–4).
The Greek word rendered “affliction” in this passage is thlipsis, a picturesque word referring to anything that brings physical pressure on someone—like the heavy weights that once were placed on the chests of criminals in England to punish them. So an “affliction” is anything that is crushing someone at a given moment in his own life and experience. A mother’s battle with two preschool boys can be as much of an affliction as someone else’s bout with crippling arthritis.
The Greek word translated “comfort” in this passage—which appears ten times in 2 Cor. 1:3–7—is intimately related to the term parakletos used in John’s gospel to describe the ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14:16; John 14:26; John 15:26; and John 16:7). New Testament scholar William Barclay maintains that this family of words refers “to that kind of comfort which keeps a man on his feet; when left to himself, he would collapse. It is the comfort which enables a man to pass the breaking-point and not break.” This comfort, Barclay says, includes “exhorting men to noble deeds—and high thoughts; it is especially the word for courage before battle.”
This is the comfort God wants to give me in my affliction so that I will be able to adequately and powerfully minister this same comfort to another in a similar trial. I will never pass judgment on the validity of this person’s affliction, and I will not attempt to minister comfort which I have never received myself. Job called his friends “miserable comforters” dote John 16:2) because they tried to speak beyond their own experience with God. They spoke the truth, but it lacked the divine anointing that comes only from prior experience with God in the school of suffering.
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“Why did I not die at birth? . . . Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but comes not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures? . . . For my sighing comes as my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.” Job 3:11–26 |
Suffering’s sting in the present can be appreciably dulled when I know that my experience will have redemptive value in the future if I allow God to minister his comfort to me now.
The Arabs have a proverb: “All sunshine makes a desert.” To everyone who comes to Christ, God’s promise is, “Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). Suffering is one way God can ensure that our “river” continues to flow.
TURN TO WHAT IS CERTAIN
A final principle is that in the midst of suffering I learn to turn my thoughts to what is certain and clear about God, rather than to what he has chosen to conceal.
Our perspective on suffering is often negative because we cannot see the coherence and beauty in the plan of God. One remedy for this is to control my thoughts. God has already adequately demonstrated his love for me in the Cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). That much is certain. The immediate purpose behind my present suffering is not as certain.
If I allow my thoughts to run toward what is uncertain (and they most assuredly will tend to do that), I will feel forsaken and hopeless. But if I consciously remind myself of what I confidently know of God’s ultimate love for me, my present circumstances will no longer lead me to feel forsaken.
Isaiah said, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant, who walks in darkness and has no light, yet trusts in the name of the Lord and relies upon his God?” (Isaiah 50:10). Sometimes the child of light is found walking in darkness, but he goes on walking—not because he is a stoic, but because he is convinced that being on the path is ultimately more crucial than always being able to see it.
This present world is striving to eliminate suffering, and we as believers should cooperate in alleviating misery whenever and wherever we can. But also, we of all people should recognize that suffering is a prerequisite for Christlikeness, God’s ultimate goal for each of us.
We should therefore expect suffering for ourselves, and we should strive to grow under its instruction—thereby becoming vehicles of God’s comfort, and not judgment, in the lives of those we touch.
True Encouragement for God’s True Sons
“The Bible has a great deal to say about suffering, and most of it is encouraging. The prevailing religious mood is not favorable to this doctrine, but anything that gets as much space as the doctrine of suffering gets in the Scriptures should certainly receive careful and reverent attention from the sons of the new creation. We cannot afford to neglect it, for whether we understand it or not we are going to experience suffering.” (A. W. Tozer, “The Uses of Suffering” in The Root of the Righteous, 1955)
1. Glancing over Hebrews 12:4-11, we see the words struggle, hardship, painful—this passage obviously speaks of suffering.
Why does God allow suffering in our lives, according to this passage?
Why do you think it is often so hard for us to recognize and accept such an answer when we are suffering, or when someone close to us is suffering?
2. If we are not undergoing any hardships, what does that imply about our relationship with God, according to Hebrews 12:8?
3. Notice in Hebrews 12:11 the “harvest” we gain as we are trained by the hardships God sends to discipline us. How can we tell whether or not this training is taking place in our lives?
4. How does the parable in Luke 8:4–15 indicate the importance of endurance in the Christian life?
5. Rev. 21:1–7 tells of a reward for the Christian “who overcomes.” What impresses you most in this passage?
In Tune with God
“Prayer is a most serious work of our most serious years” (E. M. Bounds). Realizing the significance of suffering, review before God your thoughts about the article above. You may want to use these Scripture texts to help guide your prayer John 16:33; Phil. 1:29; and Hebrews 12:12–13.
