When Bad Things Happen (Part 2)
The good that Paul writes about is a commitment of life to the
sovereign will of God. It is complete trust in God. It is a
conviction that cannot be blurred even by the reality of human
suffering.
Unfortunately, unlike Paul, many of us do not trust God as our
sovereign Lord. We spend so much of our time and energies
running around trying to reason things out and only running into
dead end streets. We have enormous difficulty understanding and
accepting the obvious spiritual truth that being good does not
mean only good things will happen to you. We think being "good"
as it were, should exempt us from troubles and when it befalls
us, we frantically search for hidden meanings. It is because we
cannot find satisfying answers that a multitude of us are quite
willing to toss our faith and God aside and spend the rest of
our lives groping helplessly in the dark.
I have witnessed, and I am sure you have too, individuals crack
under the strain of personal tragedy. We have all observed the
aftermath of accidents and other unexpected deaths which claimed
the life of one member of a family and functionally end the
lives of five others. Because of some illness, or injury or
rejection or disappointment or death, I have seen people undergo
radical personality transformations. They were unable to reason
out their circumstance. Their faith was shallow and predicated
on reason.
If God is on the throne, then we can live confident that all
things are working out for our good. If God is on the throne, we
will see a good that goes beyond our finite understanding. This
is what faith is. Faith is most clearly demonstrated when bad
things happen. But we have trouble relying on God and trusting
His sovereignty. We want to know everything. We want to know
what we can't know and keep ourselves confused and pessimistic.
Seneca expressed this tendency well when he said,
"We fail to know what is necessary, because we utilize our
time studying unnecessary things; we do not know what is good
for us because we are consumed in studying only what injures
us."
We can struggle to ascertain all the answers and it will always
be an exercise in futility for "who can know the mind of God?"
Paul made it clear in 1 Corinthians 13:12; "Now we see but a
poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully
known."
The life of faith covers every single situation. Our endeavor to
explain everything, establishing our own sense of well-being,
will only throw all of life out of kilter. The affirmation comes
at the point that we trust the sovereign God who created us,
sustains us and offers us salvation through His incarnation and
redemption in the person of Jesus Christ. For Christians, all
things do work together for our good. We do need to be very
advanced in years to look back and see how things we thought
were so disastrous, worked out to a be a greater blessing than
we could have ever hoped for.
Now, we must note the fact that according to Paul, things work
together for the good only to those who love Him. If we
love and trust and accept God; if we are convinced that God is
the all-wise, all-loving Father, then we can accept and manage
any difficulty that comes our way, regardless of how trying it
may be. Epictetus once wrote:
Have courage to look up to God and to say, "deal with me Lord
as you will. I am yours. I flinch from nothing so long as you
think it is for my good. Lord, lead me where you will; put on me
what you will; I will love and defend thee always before
men."
And Paul added another attachment to his assertion; things work
together for the good to those who love Him and are
called according to His purpose. The called are not merely those
who receive an invitation, but they accept it, were born from
above and know from experience the love of God.
When bad things happen, the faith that had been idle while good
things happened, kicks in. When the road gets rough and the
hills become hard to climb - faith; when we must walk through
the valley of the shadow of death - faith; when our world
crumbles around us and we cannot see any way out of the mess -
faith; When we hear of tragedies visited upon the innocents -
faith. When we cannot understand the why's - faith.
Christians understand that the Bible does not state or even
intimate that we will not suffer. Jesus' life is our example
life and His was a life of suffering. What the Bible does make
clear is the promises of God. God has promised to be with us in
our suffering and struggles. God has promised victory over
temporal suffering in eternity. And that, my friends, is the key
to understanding the reality of God's promise that all things do
work together for good. God is present with us. He is in our
every circumstance.
God takes the pain, the hurt, the difficulty and walks with us
through them - transforming our whole perspective on life. The
essence of a surrendered life is the knowledge, the confidence,
the faith that all things do work together for good in God's
eternal plan to those who love Him; to those who are called
according to His purpose.
When bad things happen - FAITH!