In Jeremiah 29:11 it
says:
"For I know the
plans I have for you”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“plans for your welfare,
not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope"
Is God a liar? Is He
deceitful in giving us false hope? Where is this welfare, future and hope that
He talks about in this broken, sin-filled world? Where is He when we are
suffering? How dare He claim to be a loving God when He lets such terrible
things happen to us?!
All of us suffer to
a certain extent, some more than others. This question was posed to me by a
friend who suffers greatly. And this was written in order to address that
question.
The first thing to
note though, before I address the heart of the question, is that the question
is technically the wrong one to ask. This is because asking the question in
that way takes the verse out of its correct context. If you look at the verse
in the context of where it comes from (especially Jeremiah 29:10-14), you'll
see that God is speaking to a specific
group of people (The Israelites) at a specific
time (during the Exile). It is by no
means a blanket statement that God will grant everyone blessing and hope.
Answering the
question in this way, however, does not address the heart of the question. After all, elsewhere in the Bible God does claim to be good, caring and loving
beyond our wildest imagination; that He would care for and provide for us; that
He would protect us and save us. Yet, every day we live through a reality of
suffering, some more than others. Where is He in all of this mess?! There is
something in our hearts that rails at the injustice of the situation; we feel
slighted, wronged. It's as if your Father promised you something, but didn't
fulfil that promise. If He didn't come through on His promise, then does that
mean He wasn't able to do it? Or was it
because He didn't want to do it? Is He
really all that good?
Does He really love me?
The answer from the
Bible is always a resounding YES! God does love you. There is (or at least should
be) no question about it!
So… how are we to
make sense of this senseless suffering, then?
I believe that we
are often disappointed with God for absolutely the wrong reasons. We assume the
wrong things about Him, and feel that He should abide by our assumptions the
way we want. A poor understanding of the
promises of God leads to unreasonable disappointment and bitterness.
The first thing you
need to understand about God's promises is that God promises good but we don't deserve it! Too often we are like spoilt brats
thinking that we deserve to have it all,
and that we have been wronged greatly because we don't have what we want. But the fact is, we are traitors guilty of
high treason! We have no rights. We have
shaken our fists at the Lord of the Universe and dared to usurp His right to be
Lord over us. We have betrayed His great goodness to us. As such, we deserve
nothing more than extermination.
"Hold on a
minute!", you might say, "I haven't killed anyone, I haven't hurt
anyone, how can I be guilty of anything serious, let alone 'high
treason'?!" Ah, but denying God's Lordship over everything, including you, is
treason. And, to a perfect God, even the smallest "spot" of sin means
that you have "fallen short of the glory of God".
The second thing you
need to understand is that God promises good to those who are His;
He's very specific about who He will
bless and who He won't. He doesn't just say that everyone will get good things;
throughout the Bible God continually states that He will choose a particular
group of people to bless. He proclaims that the Israelites He will bless, but
the Caananites He will curse. He states that those who love Jesus will be
saved, but those who don't will be damned. God differentiates between the
people He will bless and those He will curse. (eg. Matthew 25, Revelation 20…
even Jeremiah 29!)
And so, if you're
struggling with God's apparent lack of blessing towards you, the first thing to
contemplate is this: Do you belong to
Him? Are you His child? Do you love Him? Because if you don't, then why should you expect anything from Him? It's like
a child who throws a fit at a stranger who wouldn't give him icecream, but
would give his daughter one. That child is not the stranger's son! He doesn't
have a right to demand that the stranger
give him icecream!
Thirdly, God promises good according to His standards. We think
we know what is "good" for us… but do we really? Children, given the chance, would do all manner of
dangerous things if their parents did not hold a tight reign on them. In a
protected environment, they have no understanding that the things they want for
themselves might, in fact, be harmful for themselves. So it is with us. How do
you know that what you think is good for you really is the best thing possible for you? "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways
are not My ways. This is the Lord’s declaration. For as heaven is
higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than
your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:8-9) When Job complains to God at the
apparent injustice of his great suffering, God replies in this way: "Who is this who obscures My counsel with ignorant
words? Get ready to answer Me like a man; when I question you, you will inform
Me. Where were you when I established the earth? Tell Me, if you have
understanding. Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know!" (Job
38:2-5) God's point? Who are you to
question Me, the Almighty, Omnipotent,
Omniscient Everlasting God?! It's like the child who questions the parents'
motives or knowledge ignorantly, except on a much, much more extreme scale.
If you understand
the extent of the "otherness" of God, then you can understand how it
would be logical that you find it hard to grasp His thoughts or understand His
reasoning, because you simply cannot comprehend that level of knowledge and thought.
If that is so, then surely it must be conceivable that God could make something
good happen out of something that appears terrible to you. Being stricken with
disease becomes an opportunity to minister and love those who suffer in the
same way; being struck with poverty helps you to be thankful for the people
that you have around you; being cursed with loneliness helps you appreciate the
Lord who is always near. We need to understand that God simply operates at a
totally superior level over us, and that even when we cannot see what's good about a situation, God can. We need the
humility to admit that we can't think like God, because we're not God.
The fourth point you
need to grasp is that God promises good
in the future. Most of the blessings He promises stretch
far into Eternity. The Lord is much less concerned about the trivial amount of
time we spend in this broken world, and much more concerned about the quality
of our Eternal Life with Him! Yes, healing, restoration, peace and all manner
of good things have been promised for us; but these find their fulfillment only
after Jesus comes back to Earth and
brings in the New World. It is not until Jesus comes back as our victorious
King, vanquishing the Devil once and for all, that the New Jerusalem comes.
Humans are way too
short-sighted, and this generation particularly so. We want quick fixes. We
want comfort NOW. But "With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and
a thousand years like one day." (2 Peter 3:8). He operates in time frames that
we simply cannot comprehend. And He says to us, "Trust Me. When you get to
Eternity, it's all worth it."
A fifth issue that is often conveniently
overlooked is that God promises good, but the Devil promises evil.
God is not the only factor at play here; there is an Enemy out there too! The
Devil, the embodiment of Evil, desires nothing more than to see God's people
suffer. God doesn't desire suffering for His people; the Devil does. Is God
powerless to stop the Devil from hurting His children? Of course not! In fact,
God does have a plan to stop the Devil
once and for all in the future. But it is a plan in
action; it has yet to be fulfilled. Sure, God could just wipe the Devil
out in an instant. But, "The Lord does not
delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not
wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9)
In delaying His plan to wipe the Devil out, He allows the greater good to be
done, the salvation of many souls.
Of course, this
question then arises: Why couldn't God stop the Devil before he made such a
mess of things? Was He powerless to stop the Devil? Again, of course not! He is
Sovereign Lord, Almighty Creator. He can snuff out all of existence at a whim.
But He didn't. Why? I do not know. And I cannot pretend to know all the
intricate details of the mind of my God.
See, at the end of
the day, you can question His motives endlessly. The questioning would never
stop; and there is never an answer that you can just say definitively x + y =
z. It's not as neat as that. And the problem with trying to do too much of that
is that it's all purely hypothetical! I am sure that when we get to meet God
face to face and ask Him all these questions in person, we would all realise
that we had figured it out all wrong! So it is hardly helpful to go down these
rabbit-trails that lead nowhere. Rather, we should focus on what we do know for certain: Jesus came, died and rose
again. He claimed He was God. The fact that He could raise Himself up from the
dead proves that He is what He claims He is. From this, we can deduce that the
Bible, the living Word of God, is true. The Bible states plainly God's
goodness. Do we trust Him? Do we have faith in Him?
Finally and most importantly, God promises good in the form of Jesus.
Yes, God promises to bring us peace, joy, love; Yes, He promises that He will
take a place where there are no more tears or suffering; Yes, He promises to be
close to us and take care of us. But the single most important Gift He has to
give to us is JESUS. It is in Jesus that we have every and any blessing that
God gives to us. Read Ephesians 1:3-14. All other things may be nice little
additions, but it is the blessing of Christ Himself that is most important.
Got an incurable
illness? Doesn't matter, because through Jesus
He will give you New Life. Feeling poor? Doesn't matter, because through Jesus you have wealth beyond measure
because you have the most important
thing in existence! Feeling cornered and powerless? Doesn't matter, because through Jesus God has already won Eternal
Victory.
You might prefer to
have things like health, wealth and earthly power. But God doesn't give you
what you want, He gives you what's good
for you, and Jesus is the single most
important thing that He can give you, because it is through Him that you have anything that matters for Eternity. Is it
wrong to want health and well-being? No, but if you desire it above a desire for God Himself, then that is
idolatrous and evil, because nothing matters more than Jesus.
There are probably
other aspects that I have not covered yet. I suppose if I covered everything
this blog post would take forever! But, as I had mentioned earlier, all the
reasoning in the world will not change your heart. At the heart of the matter
is: are you willing to trust Him?
It is my hope and
prayer that in reading this the Holy Spirit will convict your heart, reach out
and grab your soul, and help you see how much
God loves you, even if you can't
understand it very well right now. I can try and reason it out as much as I
like, but unless He opens your heart, nothing will work. May the Lord give you
Peace through His Son, who was sacrificed so that you may have Eternal Life.
May you be able to look at Jesus, and see the bloody evidence that God loves
you so much that He is willing to give
His one and only Son up for your sake. May you see Him as the only way through
to a future and a blessed hope.
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
14 Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord."
Psalm 27:13
Amen
