As humans sometimes we feel very hard to understand why bad things happen to good people. Like the following story, that I heard one day while I was driving from my home to my office years ago. I was listening to a bible conference message from RBC by Rev. Bill Crowder (Our Daily Bread Bible Teacher). He talked about suffering. He said many times we do not know why bad circumstance happen to our life. Further, he shared his experience when he was a young pastor for a church, he received a call from his family to inform that his dad has passed away. While his heart was overwhelmed with grief, a senior pastor came to him and said "one day you will be thankful for this". He thought why he should be thankful for his dad's death. That happened to be his first funeral service. Years have passed by, he conducted many more funeral services, because of his experience with his dad's funeral, and he was able to serve the grieving family more passionately and connected with them.
Admittedly when unfavourable circumstances come to us, or good things have not happen to us, for example maybe a family is waiting for having a baby, an adult man or woman is looking for a job or a life partner or a very sick man or woman is waiting for a miracle that he/she would fully recover from his/her sickness, and yet these prayers have not yet been answered. To make it worse, sometimes when one bad event has not been recovered, another misfortune occur, it's like an old saying, "Rub salt into the wound". Some of us if it is not all, including me, sometimes would questioning God when an unfavourable situation occurs to me, "Why this happen to me? Has God forgotten me?" and in fact does God really forget about us? Or we think that God enjoy to see us suffer?
Isaiah 55:8-9 New International Version (NIV)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.
9 “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Before we judge God, we need to know who we really are, and who God really is. God is an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent being. Who can fully understand Him? We are not all knowing, nor are we everywhere present. Furthermore, God never and will never enjoy to see us suffer. If he does, the cross will never happened. I wrote an article previously re. Blame-Shifting, where we as human sometimes do something wrong or inappropriate, and then dump the mistakes on other people's head to avoid taking responsibility or our own behaviour, while God does play Blame-Shifting too. In contrast compared to us, instead of dumping the mistakes on others, He voluntarily take the blame although it is not His faults. He is willing to take the consequences of the sins, which are not belong to Him, so we may be hindered from the consequences, which is dead (Romans 6:23a). Do you think why He would do that? He did that because He loves his creations including us, until he would better sacrifice himself so we will be saved.
Chorus of “Trust His Heart”
God is too wise to be mistaken, God is too good to be unkind,
So when you don't understand, When you don't see His plan,
When you can't trace His hand, Trust His Heart
There is a song title "Trust His Heart", we may comprehend the chorus of the lyrics. I think this lyrics may help us how to respond, when we are experiencing suffering. We really do not know why those bad things happen to us, and where this horrible situation will bring us, maybe God is working on something to prepare us for our future. Like the story at the introduction, the sad situation that occurred to the young pastor has prepared him to serve better in his future career. We do not need to understand everything about God and His actions. However, we have to know and understand our God has a loving heart, which is reflected by His real work on the cross. Therefore, when we really do not understand and do not know what to do, just trust His Heart.
Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".
References:
Omniscient: knowing everything
Omnipotent: having unlimited power, able to do anything
Omnipresent: of God present everywhere at the same time
