Theodicy:
θiˈɒdɪsi - from the Greek theo- "god" + dikē "justice"
A vindication of God's goodness and justice
in the face of the existence of evil.
θiˈɒdɪsi - from the Greek theo- "god" + dikē "justice"
A vindication of God's goodness and justice
in the face of the existence of evil.
With the world in an undoubted mess, should we be blaming God? After all, he made it for us, so if he’s all-powerful, couldn’t he sort it out for us? It’s a compelling argument against belief in an all-powerful benevolent God, and as an argument it dates back at least to Epicurus, a Greek philosopher who lived about 300 years before Christ. He stated it like this:
• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
• Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
• Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
• Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
As pointed out in the previous talk, this argument is only relevant if the God we believe in is a personal God who cares about us. So let’s re-state the title of this talk, because this is the real issue: Why does a good God let us suffer? Jesus even promised that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Why?
SUFFERING
There are many ways in which we suffer, some are physical, some emotional or spiritual, and many times a combination of these. Suffering may be individual (personal), or may involve large numbers of people at once. It may also be the consequence of our own actions or the actions of others, or beyond human control in the form of natural events. Insurance companies like to call these events “acts of God.” Like they are theological experts.
Personal tragedy is very common, and most of us at least know someone who has suffered in this way. Several years ago my mother was murdered in front of my father by an intruder in their home. A few hours later a well-meaning Christian friend said to him “You must be so angry.” He looked up in genuine surprise and said “Angry? No! I’m very sad, but not angry. We’re Christians. We forgive.” Later that same day a Christian leader said to him “One has to wonder: where was God at a time like this?” Again he showed genuine surprise, if not some irritation, responding “He was right there of course! He promised to be with us always.”
This deep-seated conviction came from a lifetime with God, a lifetime of getting to know him so well that the responses were second nature.
The Bible clearly tells us that God repeatedly promises to be “with” his people, and Jesus famously echoes the promise just before his ascension to heaven: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20.) We could also think of the famous passage in Psalm 23:3: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Notice that there is no indication that he would take us out of the valley – but that he will surely be there with us. The next verse says “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Again, he doesn’t take us away from the presence of our enemies; he sets a banqueting table for us in their midst. He will join us there for a meal, something that signified close companionship in the Jewish culture.
• Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
• Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
• Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
• Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
As pointed out in the previous talk, this argument is only relevant if the God we believe in is a personal God who cares about us. So let’s re-state the title of this talk, because this is the real issue: Why does a good God let us suffer? Jesus even promised that “in this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). Why?
SUFFERING
There are many ways in which we suffer, some are physical, some emotional or spiritual, and many times a combination of these. Suffering may be individual (personal), or may involve large numbers of people at once. It may also be the consequence of our own actions or the actions of others, or beyond human control in the form of natural events. Insurance companies like to call these events “acts of God.” Like they are theological experts.
Personal tragedy is very common, and most of us at least know someone who has suffered in this way. Several years ago my mother was murdered in front of my father by an intruder in their home. A few hours later a well-meaning Christian friend said to him “You must be so angry.” He looked up in genuine surprise and said “Angry? No! I’m very sad, but not angry. We’re Christians. We forgive.” Later that same day a Christian leader said to him “One has to wonder: where was God at a time like this?” Again he showed genuine surprise, if not some irritation, responding “He was right there of course! He promised to be with us always.”
This deep-seated conviction came from a lifetime with God, a lifetime of getting to know him so well that the responses were second nature.
The Bible clearly tells us that God repeatedly promises to be “with” his people, and Jesus famously echoes the promise just before his ascension to heaven: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20.) We could also think of the famous passage in Psalm 23:3: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Notice that there is no indication that he would take us out of the valley – but that he will surely be there with us. The next verse says “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Again, he doesn’t take us away from the presence of our enemies; he sets a banqueting table for us in their midst. He will join us there for a meal, something that signified close companionship in the Jewish culture.
Group tragedies are also sadly quite common. A few weeks ago my good friend James Thomas was one of over 60 people killed in a terrorist attack in a shopping mall in Nairobi. Two days after hearing the news, I took his wife Colleen to the bank to start sorting out affairs. On the way she insisted on stopping to speak with various homeless people and car guards, people whom she knew, people that she and James had befriended and helped. At the final stop we sat together on the pavement with three homeless friends and shared a time of prayer. Colleen then invited them home for lunch, surprising some of the crowds of friends at her home.
James Thomas
This is what God does for us; he comes in to our world, he sits down with us and comforts us, and “has a meal” with us. He does not shield us from the realities of this broken world, he walks through them with us.
There are also many types of natural disasters, from extreme weather to volcanoes, from plagues and diseases to famine. Whilst these are “nature’s doing” human factors do often play a role; for example, poor quality buildings falling in an earthquake, inefficient or irresponsible use of land contributing to food shortages, climate change due to increasing greenhouse gas levels, and so on; clearly some ‘natural’ disasters are not completely natural. For example it is estimated that there is enough food produced in the world to adequately feed over 11 billion people, and yet almost half of the 7 billion population are inadequately fed. Thousands die every day from starvation; in Africa alone over 15 000 people – the majority of them children – die every day from malnutrition-related problems or direct starvation. These things are surely not simply nature’s fault when there is enough food to go round?
Although natural disasters like the Japanese tsunami are devastating in their severity, it’s worth noting that far more people die through direct human activity than through any natural disasters, as many as 100 times more according to estimates of the past decade.
So how do we understand all this suffering in a world made by an all-powerful and good God? The church has often not been all that helpful in understanding this, especially when it has made false promises of happiness in attempts to evangelise, falsely misleading people with comments like “Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life” or “Come to Jesus and he will take away your troubles.” As already noted, Jesus actually promised we would have trouble!
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
- John 16:33
One could rephrase the famous verse in John 3:16 to illustrate popular understanding:
For God so loved the church that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish or suffer, but should have a pleasant life, followed by life in heaven after death.
For God sent his son into the world to condemn the world, and to save the church. (Not John 3:16)
SHOULD GOD INTERVENE?
If God is present everywhere, seeing everything, it’s natural to think that he should intervene when he sees suffering. But think too of exactly what he is seeing everywhere; are there people who trust him, who honour him, who obey him? Sadly no, what he sees is mostly people thumbing their nose at him and at what he has said – and yet they still want him to intervene on their behalf when anything goes wrong. He actually longs to be in close relationship with us all the time, that was the purpose of creation, and yet most of the world ignores him. The world is a place of sin, a place of evil, mostly ignoring God, choosing to go our own way again and again.
But let’s just consider, what if he was to intervene, where and how should he? Where does he draw the line? Does he only act on serious violence like war and murder and rape, or include dangerous behaviour like driving drunk … or also include emotional trauma, when someone is hurt by words or bullying … or what about when someone tells a lie, or simply thinks poorly of someone else?
The trouble is, our very thoughts are offensive to a Holy God, if he were to stop all evil (sin) he would have to simply eradicate the human race. The nub of the issue is that he created us with the ability to choose freely how to behave; it’s because he gave us this free choice that the world is in such a mess; and God in his integrity will not withdraw his gift. Instead, he offers us a way out of the mess, and that way is to freely choose Jesus; if we do, he will “be with us to the end of the age” even through the valley of the shadow of death. But if he were to stop all evil he would have to bring this age to an end – and this is something he will eventually do. In the meantime this is a time of his mercy, delaying the inevitable end so that more may have the opportunity to choose him.
So for people who like to ask “Why doesn’t God take all the bad people out of the world?” the answer is simply because that would mean removing you and I too.
The line separating good and evil passes not through states – nor between political parties – but right through every human heart.
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
When we ask why God allows suffering we are in effect seeking the justification of God, i.e. seeking to ‘excuse’ him for the mess we’re in. C.S. Lewis once wrote an essay called “God in the Dock”, in which he makes it clear that there is no need to ‘justify’ God because he has done nothing wrong. It is ourselves and our lives that need justification. He writes:
In former times we approached God as an accused person approaches his judge. But for the modern man the roles are reversed. We are the judge; God is in the dock.
Now, we are quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defence for being a god who permits war, poverty, and disease, we are ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal.
But the important thing is that we are on the bench and God is in the dock.
FREE WILL AS PART OF CREATION
The two main accusations thrown at God around the question of human suffering can be called “the omnipotent underachiever problem” – in which God who can do anything didn’t in fact make such a good creation – and the “goodness problem” – which is basically the Epicurus argument mentioned before. Restated in more modern terms, it goes like this:
“A God who is all-powerful and good would stop all suffering in the world. So if God is both good and all-powerful, there would be no suffering. But there is, so a good and all-powerful God does not exist.”
Any logician would point out that the whole argument depends on the initial premise being true, i.e. that a good and all-powerful God would stop all suffering. So one has to ask if there could not perhaps be reasons why he wouldn’t?
James Thomas
This is what God does for us; he comes in to our world, he sits down with us and comforts us, and “has a meal” with us. He does not shield us from the realities of this broken world, he walks through them with us.
There are also many types of natural disasters, from extreme weather to volcanoes, from plagues and diseases to famine. Whilst these are “nature’s doing” human factors do often play a role; for example, poor quality buildings falling in an earthquake, inefficient or irresponsible use of land contributing to food shortages, climate change due to increasing greenhouse gas levels, and so on; clearly some ‘natural’ disasters are not completely natural. For example it is estimated that there is enough food produced in the world to adequately feed over 11 billion people, and yet almost half of the 7 billion population are inadequately fed. Thousands die every day from starvation; in Africa alone over 15 000 people – the majority of them children – die every day from malnutrition-related problems or direct starvation. These things are surely not simply nature’s fault when there is enough food to go round?
Although natural disasters like the Japanese tsunami are devastating in their severity, it’s worth noting that far more people die through direct human activity than through any natural disasters, as many as 100 times more according to estimates of the past decade.
So how do we understand all this suffering in a world made by an all-powerful and good God? The church has often not been all that helpful in understanding this, especially when it has made false promises of happiness in attempts to evangelise, falsely misleading people with comments like “Jesus has a wonderful plan for your life” or “Come to Jesus and he will take away your troubles.” As already noted, Jesus actually promised we would have trouble!
“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
- John 16:33
One could rephrase the famous verse in John 3:16 to illustrate popular understanding:
For God so loved the church that he sent his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish or suffer, but should have a pleasant life, followed by life in heaven after death.
For God sent his son into the world to condemn the world, and to save the church. (Not John 3:16)
SHOULD GOD INTERVENE?
If God is present everywhere, seeing everything, it’s natural to think that he should intervene when he sees suffering. But think too of exactly what he is seeing everywhere; are there people who trust him, who honour him, who obey him? Sadly no, what he sees is mostly people thumbing their nose at him and at what he has said – and yet they still want him to intervene on their behalf when anything goes wrong. He actually longs to be in close relationship with us all the time, that was the purpose of creation, and yet most of the world ignores him. The world is a place of sin, a place of evil, mostly ignoring God, choosing to go our own way again and again.
But let’s just consider, what if he was to intervene, where and how should he? Where does he draw the line? Does he only act on serious violence like war and murder and rape, or include dangerous behaviour like driving drunk … or also include emotional trauma, when someone is hurt by words or bullying … or what about when someone tells a lie, or simply thinks poorly of someone else?
The trouble is, our very thoughts are offensive to a Holy God, if he were to stop all evil (sin) he would have to simply eradicate the human race. The nub of the issue is that he created us with the ability to choose freely how to behave; it’s because he gave us this free choice that the world is in such a mess; and God in his integrity will not withdraw his gift. Instead, he offers us a way out of the mess, and that way is to freely choose Jesus; if we do, he will “be with us to the end of the age” even through the valley of the shadow of death. But if he were to stop all evil he would have to bring this age to an end – and this is something he will eventually do. In the meantime this is a time of his mercy, delaying the inevitable end so that more may have the opportunity to choose him.
So for people who like to ask “Why doesn’t God take all the bad people out of the world?” the answer is simply because that would mean removing you and I too.
The line separating good and evil passes not through states – nor between political parties – but right through every human heart.
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
When we ask why God allows suffering we are in effect seeking the justification of God, i.e. seeking to ‘excuse’ him for the mess we’re in. C.S. Lewis once wrote an essay called “God in the Dock”, in which he makes it clear that there is no need to ‘justify’ God because he has done nothing wrong. It is ourselves and our lives that need justification. He writes:
In former times we approached God as an accused person approaches his judge. But for the modern man the roles are reversed. We are the judge; God is in the dock.
Now, we are quite a kindly judge; if God should have a reasonable defence for being a god who permits war, poverty, and disease, we are ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God's acquittal.
But the important thing is that we are on the bench and God is in the dock.
FREE WILL AS PART OF CREATION
The two main accusations thrown at God around the question of human suffering can be called “the omnipotent underachiever problem” – in which God who can do anything didn’t in fact make such a good creation – and the “goodness problem” – which is basically the Epicurus argument mentioned before. Restated in more modern terms, it goes like this:
“A God who is all-powerful and good would stop all suffering in the world. So if God is both good and all-powerful, there would be no suffering. But there is, so a good and all-powerful God does not exist.”
Any logician would point out that the whole argument depends on the initial premise being true, i.e. that a good and all-powerful God would stop all suffering. So one has to ask if there could not perhaps be reasons why he wouldn’t?
Alvin Platinga
Alvin Plantinga, an American analytic philosopher widely regarded as the top philosophical thinker of the past several decades, has argued this point eloquently based on the fact that even an all-powerful God can obviously not do what is illogical or contradictory. There are many situations where only one of two possibilities may exist at a time, excluding the other. For example God cannot make a square circle. There is no married bachelor. The Bible lists things God cannot do, like lie or break his promise (see Hebrews 6:18; 2 Timothy 2:13; Titus 1:2). So there are reasons rooted in both his nature and in the nature of reality why there are some things that even God cannot do.
An all-powerful being could choose to limit his power to interfere with our choices by promising not to interfere with our choices; i.e. he could offer us free will. It would be illogical or contradictory to allow freewill and then to interfere with that freewill.
Thus the power of an omnipotent God is limited by the freedom he chooses to give his creatures. God is limited by the universe he has chosen to create, and as long as the universe continues to exist, his power to act will be restricted by his own choice. It’s not that God can’t intervene, it is that he has chosen to place this limit upon himself for our sakes. – Alvin Platinga
RISKING LOVE
God created us to be the objects of his love. His purpose was relationship.
“You have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created” - Revelation 4:11
But love always entails a risk. If one loves someone, there is a permanent risk of being hurt by that person’s choices. Love risks suffering. And if one removes the option of choice from the loved one then love cannot be reciprocal. God took the risk. When we chose to hurt him by rebelling against him, he responded with a rescue operation whereby we get to choose again; this time we can choose to have him in us, empowering us to live and act as would please him, whilst he forgives all our shortcomings. But the created world still suffers the consequences of our wrong choices until it is one day replaced by a new creation. We do not actually deserve to even live, but God has given us an “open door that no-one can shut” (Revelation 3:8) through which we can choose to enter his Kingdom freely.
For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.
- Lamentations 3:33
So if the world is an evil place because of human free will, then what of ‘natural’ disasters, events beyond human control? The point is, nature and humans are connected; we are all part of God’s creation, and the physical creation is under the “rule” of humans; this is Biblical (Genesis 1:28); God gave us “dominion” over the earth.
While we may understand the direct physical connection through things like global warming etc., the Bible says there is also a moral and spiritual connection; we directly affect nature spiritually. Nature is no longer “good” as it was in Genesis 1; nature has been affected by our rebellion against God, so nature is also fallen. Nature is “groaning” or struggling, it also needs redemption, restoration to its previous “good” state, and this will only happen once we are redeemed back to goodness. Paul writes that all of creation groans like it’s in labour awaiting a rebirth.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. - Romans 8:22
Just as our perfect redemption in Christ is assured even though we are not yet perfect, so nature’s redemption back to perfection will come with the creation of the New Earth at the end of this age. Jesus warned that there would be an increase in natural disasters as the last days draw near, and it’s happening today. A simple example: the number of earthquakes is doubling every 10 years. There have been more earthquakes the past 10 years than the previous 100.
An all-powerful being could choose to limit his power to interfere with our choices by promising not to interfere with our choices; i.e. he could offer us free will. It would be illogical or contradictory to allow freewill and then to interfere with that freewill.
Thus the power of an omnipotent God is limited by the freedom he chooses to give his creatures. God is limited by the universe he has chosen to create, and as long as the universe continues to exist, his power to act will be restricted by his own choice. It’s not that God can’t intervene, it is that he has chosen to place this limit upon himself for our sakes. – Alvin Platinga
RISKING LOVE
God created us to be the objects of his love. His purpose was relationship.
“You have created all things, and for your pleasure they are and were created” - Revelation 4:11
But love always entails a risk. If one loves someone, there is a permanent risk of being hurt by that person’s choices. Love risks suffering. And if one removes the option of choice from the loved one then love cannot be reciprocal. God took the risk. When we chose to hurt him by rebelling against him, he responded with a rescue operation whereby we get to choose again; this time we can choose to have him in us, empowering us to live and act as would please him, whilst he forgives all our shortcomings. But the created world still suffers the consequences of our wrong choices until it is one day replaced by a new creation. We do not actually deserve to even live, but God has given us an “open door that no-one can shut” (Revelation 3:8) through which we can choose to enter his Kingdom freely.
For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.
- Lamentations 3:33
So if the world is an evil place because of human free will, then what of ‘natural’ disasters, events beyond human control? The point is, nature and humans are connected; we are all part of God’s creation, and the physical creation is under the “rule” of humans; this is Biblical (Genesis 1:28); God gave us “dominion” over the earth.
While we may understand the direct physical connection through things like global warming etc., the Bible says there is also a moral and spiritual connection; we directly affect nature spiritually. Nature is no longer “good” as it was in Genesis 1; nature has been affected by our rebellion against God, so nature is also fallen. Nature is “groaning” or struggling, it also needs redemption, restoration to its previous “good” state, and this will only happen once we are redeemed back to goodness. Paul writes that all of creation groans like it’s in labour awaiting a rebirth.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. - Romans 8:22
Just as our perfect redemption in Christ is assured even though we are not yet perfect, so nature’s redemption back to perfection will come with the creation of the New Earth at the end of this age. Jesus warned that there would be an increase in natural disasters as the last days draw near, and it’s happening today. A simple example: the number of earthquakes is doubling every 10 years. There have been more earthquakes the past 10 years than the previous 100.
So this is what God has done about suffering: in Jesus he addressed the root cause, sin, and he has given us “the right to become children of God” … the right to choose him.
… to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. - John 1:10-13
Being his children, we will be redeemed and made perfect along with the new heaven and new earth. We cannot begin to imagine or understand that. In Our Greatest Gift, Henri Nouwen tells a parable in which he imagines twins talking to each other in their mother's womb:
The sister said to the brother, "I believe there is life after birth."
Her brother protested, "No, no, this is all there is. This is a dark and cosy place, and we have nothing else to do but to cling to the cord that feeds us."
But the little girl insisted, "There must be something more than this dark place. There must be something else, a place with light where there is freedom to move." Still, she could not convince her twin brother.
After some silence, the sister said hesitantly, "I have something else to say, and I'm afraid you won't believe that, either; I think there is a mother."
Her brother became furious. "A mother!" he shouted. "What are you talking about? I have never seen a mother, and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head? As I told you, this place is all we have. Why do you always want more? This is not such a bad place, after all. We have all we need, so let's be content."
The sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother's response and for a while didn't dare say anything more. But she couldn't let go of her thoughts. Finally she said, "Don't you feel these squeezes every once in a while? They're really quite unpleasant, and sometimes even painful."
"Yes," he answered. "What's special about that?"
"Well," the sister said, "I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, one much more beautiful than this, one we can’t begin to imagine, where we will see our mother face-to-face. Don't you think that's exciting?"
The brother didn't answer. He was fed up with the foolish talk but now he started to wonder.
The Carmelite nun, Teresa of Ávila, wrote that “the most horrible life on earth will be viewed as no more inconvenient than one night in a bad hotel, from the viewpoint of heaven.”
… to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. - John 1:10-13
Being his children, we will be redeemed and made perfect along with the new heaven and new earth. We cannot begin to imagine or understand that. In Our Greatest Gift, Henri Nouwen tells a parable in which he imagines twins talking to each other in their mother's womb:
The sister said to the brother, "I believe there is life after birth."
Her brother protested, "No, no, this is all there is. This is a dark and cosy place, and we have nothing else to do but to cling to the cord that feeds us."
But the little girl insisted, "There must be something more than this dark place. There must be something else, a place with light where there is freedom to move." Still, she could not convince her twin brother.
After some silence, the sister said hesitantly, "I have something else to say, and I'm afraid you won't believe that, either; I think there is a mother."
Her brother became furious. "A mother!" he shouted. "What are you talking about? I have never seen a mother, and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head? As I told you, this place is all we have. Why do you always want more? This is not such a bad place, after all. We have all we need, so let's be content."
The sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother's response and for a while didn't dare say anything more. But she couldn't let go of her thoughts. Finally she said, "Don't you feel these squeezes every once in a while? They're really quite unpleasant, and sometimes even painful."
"Yes," he answered. "What's special about that?"
"Well," the sister said, "I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, one much more beautiful than this, one we can’t begin to imagine, where we will see our mother face-to-face. Don't you think that's exciting?"
The brother didn't answer. He was fed up with the foolish talk but now he started to wonder.
The Carmelite nun, Teresa of Ávila, wrote that “the most horrible life on earth will be viewed as no more inconvenient than one night in a bad hotel, from the viewpoint of heaven.”
We need to understand what God is really like. He is not generally disappointed in us or angry with us – he is generally glad that we are his! He’s truly a good father. Jesus told the parable about the lost son in Luke 15 to illustrate this. The moment the lost son returns the father is glad. He doesn’t seek apology or penance, he just welcomes and says “Let us be glad!” (Luke 15:23).
God came personally into this evil word with a solution whereby we could be in close relationship with him again, because broken people matter to God. God himself walked through the valley of the shadow of death because you and I matter to him.
There is much advice out there in the world about how to cope in the midst of suffering; much of it is at best unhelpful and at worst damaging lies. However, there is something strangely helpful about comments such as “Accept it and get on with your life;” “The world shouldn’t be like this but for now it is, so move on;” “The experience will make you wiser and stronger.”
But as Christians we are told that God is indeed “for” us and with us in the valley, and on this premise there is better advice available.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
- Romans 8:31
God is on our side. Godly advice would include:
1. Have faith in a loving God. He invites us to trust him no matter what.
2. Hold on to hope: the future holds a sure promise of eternal redeemed life.
3. Remember love: God is Immanuel, present with us, because he wants us, likes us, loves us.
Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- I Corinthians 13:13
God came personally into this evil word with a solution whereby we could be in close relationship with him again, because broken people matter to God. God himself walked through the valley of the shadow of death because you and I matter to him.
There is much advice out there in the world about how to cope in the midst of suffering; much of it is at best unhelpful and at worst damaging lies. However, there is something strangely helpful about comments such as “Accept it and get on with your life;” “The world shouldn’t be like this but for now it is, so move on;” “The experience will make you wiser and stronger.”
But as Christians we are told that God is indeed “for” us and with us in the valley, and on this premise there is better advice available.
What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
- Romans 8:31
God is on our side. Godly advice would include:
1. Have faith in a loving God. He invites us to trust him no matter what.
2. Hold on to hope: the future holds a sure promise of eternal redeemed life.
3. Remember love: God is Immanuel, present with us, because he wants us, likes us, loves us.
Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
- I Corinthians 13:13
