When Life Hurts - WHY?
Introduction
In his great tragedy, "MacBeth", Shakespeare wrote this depressing line:
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. [1]
The most depressing conclusion one could come to about life is that it is meaningless. We long to believe that our lives have purpose and that the story of our life from birth to death is more than merely a series of random events. As a result, we are constantly asking, "Why?" What is the meaning of this? Why is this happening to me? Why is it happening now?"
Sometimes we are able to push those questions into the background. You finally get a day off and decide to take the kids to the beach, but it rains all day. Why did it have to rain on the one day you wanted to go to the beach? You are getting ready to go to work, doing your best not to be late when you spill coffee on your shirt. Why did that happen to you then?
With little annoyances like these, most of us are willing to leave the "why" question unanswered. Instead, we just accept that bad things happen and there isn’t necessarily a purpose to them. That’s life.
However, when tragedy strikes, the why question can no longer be ignored. Earlier this week, a two-year-old girl was forgotten and left in a daycare van. The temperature in the van reached upwards of 125 degrees, sapping her life. Why did that happen? It appears to be a senseless tragedy. Is there no meaning or purpose to it? Where was God? Was He asleep? Is He negligent?
It is possible for most of us to ignore the "why" question even in tragedies like that. However, when tragedy hits home, the question can no longer be ignored. Why did your child turn to drugs? Why do you have cancer? Why did your spouse choose to be unfaithful? Why did your company decide to downsize?
When we are suffering or facing pain, we long to have answers.
Are there any? I believe that the Bible does provide us with some answers. While it may not tell us everything we want to know, it does answer that fundamental question. There is meaning and purpose in everything.
ROMANS 8:28-39
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (NIV)
The Thesis: God Works All Things For Good.
When bad things happen, this is particularly a problem for the Christian. Throughout history, many have used the problem of evil as arguments against Christianity. reason, then the world we see on the evening news would not exist. The problem of evil was best stated by the philosopher David Hume. Hume said, "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?"
The problem of evil is really only a problem for those who are Christians. If you do not believe in a good, all powerful God, then evil is not a problem, at least not in the philosophical sense. Without believing in a good, all-powerful God, you have no reason to believe that the universe should be ordered or good. If there is no God who is suppose to be in control of human events, if the world is only physical matter that has evolved by chance and will someday return to oblivion by chance, then to expect order, peace, or goodness to be the norm is entirely unreasonable. Instead, one should expect chaos and randomness. Meaninglessness should be expected, not surprising. So, in some sense, unless you believe in a good, all-powerful God, you cannot even ask "why?" Because there can be no answer.
Yet, the human heart cries out for meaning. Deep inside every human heart though, there is this knowledge that life is not meaningless, that there is a purpose to our existence. That is why we want to know why things happen.
This simple statement in verse 28 says a lot. It is a broad, sweeping statement. It says that in everything that happens, in all things, God is at work. There is nothing outside of His control. Therefore, everything that happens happens for a purpose that is determined by God.
God is not a spectator in human events. Sometimes, even as Christians, we can take a deistic view of life. You remember the Deists from school. The Deists, who include some of our founding fathers such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, believed that God created the world. At this time, he set up laws to govern creation. Since creation, God has been uninvolved in the affairs of the world and the events of this world occur, not by divine providence, but simply in accordance with natural law. The analogy they used was that God wound the clock, set it in motion, and then simply let it run its course.
Yet, that is not what the Bible says. The Bible says that God is involved in everything and is working in everything. God works all things, is what Paul said. I looked it up in the Greek and the Greek word for all things literally means "all things." There is nothing in which God is not working.
That means that everything that happens is a providential occurrence. He may work through secondary causes such as the laws of nature, or the free actions of human beings. Yet, even in these things, God is at work and He is at work, not only for His own glory, but for our good. Everything that happens, every event in history happens for the good of those who love God. That means the pleasures of life and the pain of life all have meaning. They are all designed by God to work some glorious purpose in those who love Him.
That does not mean that everything that happens is good. This is not a Pollyanna-ish view of life. Bad things do happen. Evil is reality. Pain is a reality. Yet, even the pain and evil we experience in life serves the ultimate good.
Now, and here comes the disclaimer, this does not necessarily mean we will know the good purpose. You may say, "Mark, I just lost my job, what good is God doing for me in that?" or "My husband just told me that he doesn’t love me. How can that possibly be for my good?" Those are the questions that we want answered. Those are the real questions of life. The question that we always ask in our pain is, "Why is this happening to me?" We long to know what good will come of it.
Yet, we don’t always know. God does not always tell us why we are suffering only that there is a reason. Instead of answering our question "Why?", God calls us to trust Him. Instead of telling us the reason for our pain, God calls us to believe that He loves us and is working good even through our pain.
This is a call to trust God no matter what. Some might even say that it is a call to blind faith in God. Yet, the faith is not totally blind. It is based on reasonable proofs.
How do we know that God is working all things for good for those who love Him?
The Evidence:
God’s Sovereignty
By God’s sovereignty, I mean that God is in control of all things. Nothing is outside of His rule, including the salvation. The Bible does not say that all things work out for the good of everyone. Rather, all things work out for the good of those who love God..
Who are the ones who love God? The verse says it is those who have been called according to His purpose, or His plan. In other words, if you love God, it is because God has reached out and called you to Himself. If you love God, then that means you have been called according to the plan of God.
Do you see the amazing love of God in that? Here is how you know that God loves you. The very reason you love God is because long before you were ever born, long before you ever sought Him, God loved you and He devised a plan to call you to be His child. How do you know if God has called you to be His child? How do you know that He loves you? The verse tells you. The ones who love God are the ones whom God has called.
Verses 29-30 explain this even more:
29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
Here we come to that scary word, "predestined." The verse says that God predestined those whom He foreknew. What does that mean? Some say that means that God looked down through time, saw who would believe in Him, and then predestined those to become Christians. In this view, God’s choosing us is a response to our first choosing Him.
However that view would contradict the whole context of the passage. If God’s choosing is based solely on our choosing, then He really isn’t choosing at all. He is merely responding. Yet, God is the one who sought us out. He doesn’t love us because we love Him. Rather, the Bible says, we love Him because He first loved us. God is not a responder but an initiator.
Also, God foreknows everyone’s actions. Yet, here, the verse speaks of God, not foreknowing our actions, but foreknowing us. Those who are foreknown by God are the ones who are predestined. What does it mean to be foreknown by God? God knows everything and everyone. That is a basic tenet of the Christianity. Yet, there is a sense in which God only knows certain people. In the Bible, the word "know" does not mean merely to have knowledge of, but to be intimate with, or to love.
For example, Genesis 4:1, we read that Adam knew his wife Eve and she gave birth to a son. It wasn’t as if Adam went up to her and said, "Hi, I’m Adam. Nice to meet you." He already knew her in that sense. It means that Adam got to know her in the biblical sense. He was intimate with her. He loved her.
In Amos 3:2, God says of Israel, "You alone have I known of all the families of the earth." Now, it wasn’t as if God didn’t know about the Babylonians or the Greeks or the Canaanites. What it means is that Israel alone was the object of His love.
In 1 Corinthians 3:2, we read that the man who loves God is known by God. It isn’t as if God has no knowledge of people who do not love Him. Rather, what it is saying is that God has a special knowledge, a special love for those who love Him.
So, what this means for the Christian is that God, before you born, foreknew you. He set His love upon you. The rest of the verses go on to further explain this love. God’s love for you was so deep that he predestined you, set your destiny to become like His Son. Because God loved you, He then called you to be His child. Because God loved you, He justified you, that is, He declared you to be completely free of all guilt and holy in His sight. And then, Paul says, those who are justified, God glorified.
Here, Paul speaks of our glorification in the past tense. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel very glorified. By using the past tense, Paul is saying that your glorification is so certain that, even though it is yet to occur, we can speak of it as a past event.
Do you see God’s sovereign love in all this? In each of those clauses, God is at work. He foreloves, He predestines, He calls, He justifies, and He glorifies. God is at work and He is doing it all for you.
Now, if God can do all this in your life, if you can trust God with all of this, then you certainly can trust Him when He says, "All things work together for good." God has proven His love for you by calling you to be His child. The very fact that you are a Christian is proof that you can trust God in all things. You would not be here if God had not set His love upon you and brought you here. So, because you have been chosen by God, you know that you are loved by God. Because you know that you are loved by God, you know that you can trust that He is working for your good, even when you do not understand the pain.
Whenever we read in the Bible about predestination, people always have questions. One of the questions is, how do I know if I am predestined? How do you know if you have been chosen by God? What if you love God but God didn’t predestine you. What happens then?
Here is how you know you are predestined. If you love God, then it is because God has loved you. It is that simple. Verse 28 says that those who love God are the ones who have been called according to His purpose. The sign that God loves you is that you love God.
God’s sovereignty is not a theological abstraction. It is the anchor for our hope in all circumstances. If God has planned from before the foundation of the world my salvation, then He certainly is not going to let anything mess up His plan. That means suffering, tragedies, and all of the pain of life must be part of God’s plan. That also means that even though life may involve pain now, we have the hope that our glorification is sure. One day, our suffering will end.
God's Sacrifice
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
You know how much someone values something by what they are willing to pay for it. It is a basic law of marketplace. An object or service is worth whatever someone is willing to pay.
Look how much God values you. If you love God, you can rest assured that God loves you even more. As John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." Here we read that God did not spare His own Son. That is how much God was willing to sacrifice for you.
A few years ago, Cindy Parolin was horseback riding in the back country of British Columbia with three of her children when a cougar lunged from the underbrush. The cat attacked her six-year-old son, Steven. Cindy got off her horse and began fighting the cat with a tree branch. While she fought the cougar, she ordered her two older children to take her wounded son and get help. They hiked to a road about a mile away. Once they got to the road, the daughter stayed with the wounded brother while the oldest boy went for help.
He found a man, Jim Manion, and they returned to the sight of the attack. Manion had a shotgun, but the cougar was so close to Cindy that he could not take aim. In a faint voice, all she could ask was, "Are my children safe?" She was told they were. The cougar lunged at her again, Manion released his dog and once the cougar moved away from her, he was able to shoot it, but it was too late. She had given her life for the safety of her children. [2]
No one will ever question Cindy Parolin’s love for her children. How could they after all she had done? Then how could we ever question God’s love for us? Now, if God was willing to sacrifice His Son for you, if He was willing to pay that kind of price, then is it even possible to question the love of God? That is a love without measure. Because of that, Paul says that we can be confident. If He gave His Son, then certainly He will also graciously give us all things.
If Jesus died for you, then most certainly you do not have to worry that God is going to take care of you. God promises to care for everyone for whom Christ died. That means everyone for whom Christ died God promises to graciously give all things.
God's Strength
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Here we see a celebration of the power of God. Not only is nothing more powerful than God, but nothing is outside of the power of God. He rules over everything. He controls death and life. He rules over angels and demons alike. All are subject o His power. The present is under His control as is the future. Paul goes on to say that there is nothing in creation that is outside of God’s powerful hand.
Because God is almighty, we know that we are safe no matter what happens. He can protect us from any sort of danger or evil. If that is the case, if God is mighty enough to protect us in every and all circumstances, then we know, no matter how bad suffering gets, we are still under the protection of God. That means, we may hurt, but we will always be okay. God is always protecting us.
48 miles from Washington D.C. is a place called Mount Weather. Built over 30 years ago, it is maintained by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. According to news reports, this is where the President and other top officials will go in case of nuclear war. According to scientists, it can survive just about anything. It has its own water and food supply, computer network, scientists, engineers, fire fighters, etc... It is a city unto itself. Protected by being inside a mountain, it has massive walls reinforced with steel and concrete and a blast-proof steel door at its entrance.
As a Christian, you have a place safer than Mount Weather. You are in the hands of God. It doesn’t matter what attacks may come your way—life, death, angels, demons, or any other powers, God will take care of you.
Are there evil forces at work? Does this life involve pain? Sure. But are any of these things any match for God? They are nothing to Him. There is no one and no thing in this universe that is capable of thwarting the plan of God.
Everyone else has their weaknesses, but God has no weaknesses.
The Response: Reckless Confidence
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
All the sufferings and hardships of life cannot separate us from the love of God. They are not indicators that God has abandoned us. We can be confident even when we face these trials. Why? Because God is sovereign. That means everything that happens to you happens according to His plan. He loves you. Look at the sacrifice of His Son. His love is unquestionable. He is all-mighty. Who is stronger than God? So, if the loving all-powerful God is in control of all things, then you can rest with confidence knowing that everything that happens happens for your good. You may not always understand "why"? but you do know that God is trustworthy.
So, Paul says, because of this, we are more than conquerors. The word for conquer is "Nike", like the shoe. It means victor. Nike was the Greek god of victory. The winner of the race or of any contest was called the Nike. Yet, Paul doesn’t say that we are merely Nike’s. The word used here is hyper-Nike.
Persecutions and hardships are a reality of life. Yet, these do not have the final answer.
We don’t have to live in fear or despair because, no matter how dark or painful life may get, we know that in the end, we will be victorious. In the end, we will win and God will bring glory to us.
So, we say with Job, "Though He slay me, still I will trust Him."
[1] (SOURCE/NOTES: MACBETH, V.v.16)
[2] "A mother's sacrifice" McLean's,
Sep 2, 1996 v109 n36 p19(1)