Years ago, for a course in Death and Dying, I read Rabbi Kushner’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” The good Rabbi asks a relevant question. How can God love us and lead us into suffering? This is not a hypothetical question. As I prayed together with our staff, around the table this week, we realized that good and godly people are enduring very great amounts of suffering, right now. Some popular preachers make this sound like a lack of faith on the part of those who are suffering. Their unbiblical thinking runs like this: “If they just believed in God more, the suffering would not have happened.” Can we agree that this is not helpful thinking for the person who is hurting? How do we make sense of the seeming nonsense of good people hurting?
While Paul was in Caesarea with Philip, the evangelist and his four prophetess daughters, another prophet named Agabus came over to see them. Remember Agabus had predicted the famine which led to the love offering for the Jerusalem church. Prophets often showed up as colorful sorts of leaders, and Agabus was no exception. Agabus took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, “The Jewish leaders will bind the owner of this belt and hand him over to the Gentiles.” This added to the concerns Paul had heard from so many disciples along the way. What would you have said to Paul?
Remember that Luke was in the group that tried to talk Paul out of going up to Jerusalem. Paul was resolute. He was not only willing to be bound but to die for the name of the Lord Jesus. When they couldn’t talk him out of going, they said, “The Lord’s will be done.” Was it? The Lord’s will? Was it done? One might say, “Well, Agabus’s prediction came true, therefore Paul should have listened and not gone up to Jerusalem.” This response assumes that God never wants his people to experience any difficulty
In Paul’s letters, we discover a theology of suffering that may help those of us who are in difficulty today. Paul believed that you could be simultaneously in God’s will and in the throes of suffering. In fact, he saw, Jesus’ story as our template for discipleship. Jesus showed us how to suffer, so that we might follow in his steps. We may not be persecuted, imprisoned, and killed for believing in Jesus. But believing in Jesus never exempts us from pain. As Paul put it, “If we share in his sufferings, we will also share in his glory” (Romans 8:17). We do not fear pain, but we cry out to Abba, our Father. And our suffering now does not even compare to the glory which will be revealed in us (Romans 8:15-18). The promise of the resurrection is that there is an end to the suffering.
In my own life I have endured a small number of very painful losses and difficulties. Would you believe me if I tell you that in those challenges, I depended more deeply on God? In a way, my Christian walk has been greatly enhanced through the suffering. The question is not, “How can God love us and let us suffer?” The question is, “Do we love Jesus enough to become like him?” Again Paul wrote, “And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). Nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).
