Today I want to cover how we can reconcile situations in our lives and in the lives of others where God allows unspeakable harm be inflicted by one human being to another.
The chapter we read by Mark Talbot digs deep into the philosophies and erroneous theology that we sometimes attribute to how we rationalize such situations. He ultimately argues from a Biblical standpoint, that the theology of open theism and the philosophy of free-will libertarianism falls flat and that we, as Christ followers should not allow that pattern of thinking twist our understanding of who God is. I’m not going to expound on either. I think Mark Talbot does a great job at debunking those ideas and lands at a really good conclusion: we cannot understand how some human act can be fully explained in terms of God’s having freely intended it without that explanation cancelling the freedom and responsibility of its human intenders. But we can understand why we cannot understand it – it’s because we’re not God and can’t even begin to understand how God works.*
So rather than belaboring a point, I want to introduce a framework by which we can move past from the shock of being inflicted by evil by other human beings and toward a course of action that ultimately brings us to a place where we can place more faith and trust in God. The lens I want to share with you is loosely based on the philosophical idea called “prophetic pragmatism” which emphasizes speaking and living truth in love to people and people groups marred by horror and conflict.
To understand this framework we need to look at Job 1:20-22 ESV.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.
Job 1:20-22 ESV
The context of these verses is this: God allows Satan to test Job’s faith. Satan then proceeds to inflict hurt and pain on job first through a group of people called the Sabeans who came and stole Job’s donkeys and oxen and killed Job’s servants. Then an unexplainable natural disaster that the Bible calls fire of God falling from heaven, that killed all of Job’s sheep his shepherds. Finally, another natural disaster takes his children away in what should have been a day of celebration because they were gathered together.
Here’s the prophetic pragmatist framework Job teaches us in this context and in these verses that we can apply in our own suffering and how we can use it to help others who are suffering or suffered at the hands of other people:
Mourn the circumstance
Something bad happened to you or somebody you know. It was inflicted by another human being. That hurts. You need to mourn that sin that was committed against you. You need to mourn with the person that is suffering or suffered at the hands of another person.
I can’t tell you how long this will take. But it starts by acknowledging the suffering whether past or present. Don’t deny it. You should be angry about it. This period of mourning should bring you to a place where you accept the fact that you suffered at the hands of others. You should know that accepting that fact doesn’t mean you’re okay with it. It just means that you acknowledge that the suffering is or was real and that you don’t have everything figured out.
Job mourned. He mourned so much that he ripped off his clothes and shaved his head. We don’t know how long that was in terms of mourning. But the fact that he mourned allowed him to start processing the suffering.
Worship God
The second thing that Job did was to worship God. This is the second step in our framework. Job went from accepting the fact that he lost everything, possessions and family, and he is compelled to worship God. In doing this, Job was turning his perspective from inwardly toward something greater than himself.
When there is nothing we can do about our suffering, we need to focus our attentions on God. God is greater than us. We have to remember that our faith, trust, and confidence is in him. It was not on ourselves.
Mark Talbot shares an excerpt from the book, “Night” where Elie Wiesel recounts the Jewish people in the concentration camp were celebrating Rosh Hashanah. They worshipped God in their suffering. They worshipped because there was nothing else they could do but honor God in submission to him.
Seek God’s glory
Finally, we need to seek God’s glory in our suffering. If we’re suffering, we can stop at mourning. Or we can mourn and then continue toward worshipping God. But that’s not where this ends. If your story did not end because of your suffering, then it’s because God will get great glory through your testimony when he sees you through.
Family, this is where we need to aim when we’re suffering or trying to figure out what to do with our suffering. Seeking God’s glory doesn’t mean that we cannot wrestle with him and question God. Job questions God a lot. At the end of all that questioning, God responds to Job. Job finally realizes that God will be glorified if he would only seek it out, he can repent and experience the awe that comes when God is glorified.
Prayer: Father, we can’t understand sometimes why we suffer at the ends of other people. Some of us have suffered so much that it afflicts the deepest recesses of our minds and hearts. We ask that you heal us by allowing us the space to mourn. That you provide the people to wrap their arms around us in our mourning. That we can be that type of brother or sister to somebody who has suffered or is suffering. Help us worship you for you and seek your glory in our lives. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.
*Read the book here: https://www.desiringgod.org/books/suffering-and-the-sovereignty-of-god
No responses yet