If God is all good, all loving and all powerful, why is there so much sin and suffering and evil in the world?
That is the hardest question a person outside the faith can put to a Christian, and it is the hardest question we put to ourselves. There is a good answer, and I want to get to it — but I am not going to pretend it arrives painlessly.
Start here. The Bible was largely written by the suffering people of God, to the suffering people of God. It did not come out of well-appointed sanctuaries and comfortable lives. It was written by hurting people, through hurting people, for hurting people. If you are hurting this morning, this book was written for you.
Peter gives us three things. Do not be surprised. Do not be unprepared. Do not lose sight of the outcome.
Do not be surprised
Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.
Have you noticed that nobody wins the lottery and cries out, why me, Lord? Good news never provokes the question. Only bad news does.
We do not get a pass. If somebody told you that following Jesus means health and wealth and smooth sailing, they were not reading the same Bible I am. God's most faithful servants are often the ones who suffer most. Teresa of Avila prayed: Lord, you would have more friends if you treated the ones you have a little better. God's people in this book spend far more time in dungeons and caves and exile than in palaces.
If anyone had grounds to ask why me, it was Joseph in Pharaoh's dungeon, or Stephen feeling the rocks, or Jesus on the road to the cross. Jesus never asked, because he knew the purpose.
Job asked. For thirty-five chapters he asked, and God never told him. Then comes the longest unbroken speech God the Father makes in the whole Bible, and the substance of it is: I am God and you are not. Job says, good enough.
Which was mercy. Because if God had answered the question, it would have gone something like this. Well, Job, I made a wager with Satan, and you were the poker chip. Feel better now?
So the question is not why me. The question is why me, Lord — what is your purpose in this? He may not tell you. In my experience he usually does not. But knowing there is a purpose is what keeps a person sane at three in the morning. It is what keeps a hand away from the bottle, or the pills, or the gun.
Do not be unprepared
Somebody once said that Americans are the only people who seem to think death is optional. We spend twenty-six billion dollars a year on cosmetic procedures, and the city that leads the country per capita is the one you are sitting in.
I had a routine appointment this past week. The nurse who brought me back is not much for conversation — she takes your weight, checks your blood pressure, does her job. Then she handed me a sheet of paper with a clock face on it, the hours marked and no hands, and asked me to draw what 11:15 would look like.
I said, are you serious. She said yes. I said, well, I generally use the sundial at home, I am not too accustomed to these newfangled clocky things. But I drew it. Then she said she was going to give me three words and the doctor would ask me to repeat them. Banana. Sunrise. Chair.
She started for the door and I said, hold on. I have a cognitive test for you. You know your alphabet? She said yes. Can you say it backwards? Her face fell about three seconds' worth. She said no — can you?
Z, Y, X, W, V, U — and on down to A, without a stumble.
Write that on your form, ma'am.
I confess it irritated me. When exactly did I become a fossil? But underneath the joke is something I learned young. My father died suddenly at fifty-five, and I have led more funerals since than I can count. Life is fragile, time is precious, and one day every one of us runs out of days — and after that, the judgment.
When God asks me to give an account of my life, I am not going to mention being a husband to one wife, or a father to four, or a pastor for all these years. I am going to say one thing. I am bought with the blood of Jesus Christ, and my name is in the book of life. All the rest is details.
Do not lose sight of the outcome
Here is the pattern, and it does not change: suffering, then judgment, then glory. Jesus suffered, so our suffering cannot be meaningless. He submitted to the judgment of men so we could stand in the judgment of God. He endured death so we could have life.
Does it help to know that even Jesus prayed a prayer that was not answered? In the garden: Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. The answer was no. Nevertheless, not my will but yours.
Ben Sasse — the former senator, now a university president — was diagnosed a few months ago with stage four pancreatic cancer, and as you all know, there is no stage five. An interviewer asked whether his faith was shaken. He said no, and then he said this, and I want to quote it exactly. There are no maverick molecules in the universe.
Not one molecule outside the sovereign care of God. That may not soften what you are carrying today, but it means this much: it did not take him by surprise, and it is not an accident.
Andrew Murray gave four anchors to anyone stuck in a hard place, and I hand them to you now. I am here by God's appointment. I am in his keeping. I am under his training. I am here for his time.
I cannot take your pain away. If I had that wand I would heal myself first — I love you, but come on — and then get to you. What I hope I can give you is a reason to hang on a little longer. Because whatever you are walking through, he has been there before you, and he is in it with you.
