Tag Archives: Following Jesus

Commentary

Why does God allow Christians to suffer?

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From Stan at Birds of the Air blog.

Excerpt:

The oh-so-common question hangs out there all the time: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” My canned answer is, I believe, true — “They don’t. There are no good people.” — but I have to admit that it’s unsatisfying. I mean, aren’t Christians “justified” — declared righteous? Sure, Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” but it’s also true that “For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). “Okay … sure … we are not good, but we are declared good, so, Stan, how about a genuine answer?” Can we actually provide an answer to the question? I think so.

First, I need to be careful here. God has specific reasons for specific things and I would not want to try to delve into His specific ideas because, well, He hasn’t seen fit to share them with me. So I won’t be doing specifics. On the other hand, the Bible is not mute on the subject. So let’s go with what we can know. We know, for instance, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. It naturally follows, then, that “bad things” are not, in the final analysis, bad. So remember that what we’re talking about is the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the painful — suffering — but not bad. Still, what’s good about suffering? Well, here’s a list of things I found in my Bible. You check yours and see if you have any of these, too.

He has a list of six possible reasons, and here is my favorite:

3. Your individual troubles provide a platform from which you can comfort others. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too” (2 Cor 1:3-5).

This is a big one for me, because I am such a good risk calculator and non-conformist that I avoid a lot of suffering simply by not doing anything dumb just because other people are doing stupid things. But once in a while, the opportunity comes along to suffer for righteousness sake. Then you have to take that opportunity to serve and the benefit you get is that your heart softens to others who are hurting, but who are accountable and repentant. What good is it to make good decisions if you don’t then turn to others who want to follow Jesus and help them?

The best reason why God allows suffering, I think, is so that we can follow Christ by imitating him in self-sacrificial love. It is hard to love someone self-sacrificially, especially when they neither recognize nor approve of the sacrifice that is being made to love them, but they just treat it as an entitlement, or worse – as a unnecessary brake on their selfish pursuit of pleasure.

I was once chatting with the brilliant and complicated ECM about whether I would allow myself to be eaten by ferocious lions for my faith, and I told him that although I would hope to be faithful, that physical courage was not one of my strengths, and I would probably cave. I just don’t like violence or the sight of blood. I didn’t grow up that way. But I did say this. I don’t get the opportunity to die for my faith every day. But every day I have the opportunity to die a little to myself by saying no to the temptation to just dump my faith and do whatever I want to be happy.

There is no shortage of time and money for me to pursue pleasure. And sometimes, I look around at what has happened to me (chastity, loneliness), and I wonder where God is. Doesn’t he know that I want to be husband and father? Why did he create me in this miserable time of feminism, socialism, and statism? There is a temptation to want to forget the obligations of that vertical relationship and just make myself happy here and now. But I think that part of the Christian life is being the friend of Jesus even when things look bleak.

And things will never be perfect. There is no way to go back in time and fix the troubles that I have had struggling to be faithful in a world that doesn’t want authentic Christianity. There were no Christians to comfort me and encourage me when I was younger, and there still aren’t many who help now. Those days are gone forever. And the only thing left for me now is to stand up again, spit out blood and teeth, pick up my sword and shield, and get back on my horse. And that is going to happen every day until I die.

That is what it means to be a Christian. You won’t get your way. You wont’ be happy. You won’t be like everyone else. You are always going to be different. Life is not going to be perfect. People are not going to like you for being a Christian. Especially not in the church! But when you suffer all of this, you will know what it feels like to follow and imitate Jesus, and that makes the friendship closer.

I think it’s important to be smart about faith. When I entered my relationship with Jesus, I knew that there would be challenges. I resolved to avoid sin as much as I could, to avoid peer pressure, to work hard, to save money, and to study apologetics. Obviously, no one is perfect. But I wanted to be ready for everything that life might throw at me. I expect to be challenged. I expected to suffer. I have prepared by becoming stronger and stronger. There will be no retreat. No surrender. I will go down with this ship. Faith is a very meticulous thing. You plan it out, and you plan on what you need to do to keep the faith. You don’t wait for the last minute and then hope to succeed by magic. Dig your trenches. Erect your fortifications. Protect your supply lines. Prepare your reserves for a counter-attack.

1 Peter 3:14-17:

14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.”

15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

17It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Here’s my best post on the problem of evil, if you want more.

And my best post on why self-denial as part of a friendship with Jesus is the condition for going to Heaven.

Mentoring

What my relationship with God is like

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I regularly take my non-Christian co-workers and friends out for lunch to check on how their worldviews are coming along, and last week a comment I made at the table seemed to really get one friend’s attention. (The last time I got his attention like this, I had said that the example of Jesus’ life is instructive for us because it shows that it is OK to suffer for doing the right thing, and that it is not God’s job to save you in this life. Life isn’t about happiness. It’s about suffering for your allegiance to God). I can always tell when I hit a nerve because the person repeats what I said back to me.

So anyway, this time I said “When it comes to God, there are only two kinds of people. The first kind wants a real relationship with the real God who is there, even if this involves self-denial, self-sacrifice, and suffering. The second kind doesn’t want a relationship with God – they want to be happy in this life and invent new standards of meaning and morality based on their personal preferences that justifies their selfishness.” The context was that I was talking about how I was changing my mother’s approach to religious questions.

So, here’s how a relationship with God might develop, based partly on my experiences:

  1. You start off as a non-Christian with no interest in God.
  2. You attend to your regular life first by studying, working, eating, sleeping, etc.. Eventually, your situation is secure and comfortable enough that you begin to ask yourself the big questions in life. Does God exist? Is morality real? What is the purpose if life?
  3. You take some of your free recreation time and try to investigate these questions. This would involve studying world religions, science and history to determine which religion best satisfies the laws of logic and the facts in the external world.
  4. You decide God exists because of the cosmological and moral arguments, and you decide that Jesus is authoritative because of the historical case for the resurrection of Jesus.
  5. You realize you are in full rebellion against God and cannot hope to change this rebellion short of being “born again”, which would involve getting forgiveness and undergoing a radical re-prioritization of your life goals. You accept the sacrifice of Christ on the cross as payment for your sins.
  6. You scour the New Testament and theology books to find out more about what the character of God is really like, and you test everything you discover against the Bible, church history and the works of solid Christian scholars.
  7. You read about characters in the Bible like Caleb, Daniel, Joshua, Paul. You say to yourself “other people aren’t always happy when you stick up for God” and “God doesn’t always make everything work out for you in this life, when you obey him”.
  8. You start to get a feel for what God is like. There is no talking to God or hearing from God, or emotional highs during worship. You learn more by reading more about him and talk to people who are stronger Christians. You learn what he likes, what he doesn’t like. You begin to appreciate that God is different from you. You realize that God is trying to change you, which scares you a little. You say yes to God more and more, just because he is so interested in you, and because he is so intent on trying to change you. For some reason, his demands don’t seem to be too objectionable, and there is always forgiveness when you fail.
  9. You find that it is easier and easier to stick to moral rules in the New Testament, because of the sympathy you have for God. You are less and less interested in trying to achieve happiness in the here and now. Things you used to like doing don’t seem to be as interesting as things that you do as part of your relationship with God. You find that opportunities to do things relevant to your relationship with God become more frequent.
  10. You talk to non-Christians about God and realize that no one else is interested in whether God exists, or what he is like. You have less and less sympathy for other people and their selfish desire to be happy. You feel less and less pressure to change what you believe to make these other people comfortable – after all, they lost every argument with you since they have no arguments or evidence. You  wonder why other people don’t investigate these things rigorously, instead of just trying to be happy all the time. They are busy doing other things.
  11. Sometimes, the worldly success of non-Christians makes you feel inadequate. They have more time for getting ahead because they don’t take any time out for a relationship with God. But you stick with God anyway, and try to encourage these non-Christians to devote more time and effort to developing their worldview more carefully. You keep trying to love these other people, and tell them the truth with reasons and evidence, but the more they rebel against God, the more you find the doctrine of Hell is acceptable to you.
  12. You start making a long-term plan about something you want to achieve for God, e.g. – you plan to get two Ph.Ds in Physics and Philosophy from Stanford and Oxford, learn to debate like William Lane Craig, and defeat Richard Dawkins in a public debate, thus dealing atheism a blow from which it will never recover. (My actual plan is described here) This plan isn’t just dull stuff like following the ten commandments and other moral rules. This is different. This is you planning out something completely new. Your plan is consistent with Bible, but it goes beyond the rules. It’s not a private plan. It’s not meant to make you feel happy. It’s a public plan. It’s designed to be effective.
  13. You love your plan. You smile, laugh and whistle a lot everywhere you go because you are so excited about your plan. People think you are very happy, but you actually feel sad, lonely and worried about being silenced or persecuted by the secular left. The plan is a lot of work, and you could do a much better job of pursuing happiness if you just dropped the whole thing. But you don’t.
  14. Your entire family and most of your friends, including other Christians, don’t recognize or value your plan. The Church opposes you at every turn, thinking that Christianity is about ignoring apologetics and theology, and making non-Christians feel happy about their rebellion against God. You notice that not everyone approves of your priorities, but you keep going with your plan anyway.
  15. You test to see if God is interested in supporting your plan by taking some small steps and watching to see if you are successful. You are successful, but progress is very slow.
  16. You give up more and more of your happiness and selfishness as you work steadily on your plan. You face opposition from non-Christians who attack you in the academy and the workplace. You face opposition from fake Christians who vote for laws and policies that rob you of your wealth and your rights, including the rights of free speech and religious liberty. Everyone who knows you well likes you, but they don’t really seriously seek after God. People who don’t know know you well sometimes persecute you because they are offended by your disagreement with them.
  17. You only achieve a tiny measure of what you set out to do before dying.
  18. On the day of Judgment, you get a resurrection body and eternal life with your best Friend. The appearance of your resurrection body reflects the plan that you chose, and everyone in Heaven recognizes you at last. You meet all the people who helped you. And you meet all the people who you helped. It turns out that you had an impact far beyond what you had thought when you were alive.
  19. Every sacrifice that you made on Earth that seemed so terrible to bear is repaid by God many time over in ways you could never imagine.
  20. Finally, for the first time in your life, you are truly happy.

Does this sound like you? If it does, then we’re on the same battlefield. Put your back to mine and let’s stand together.

But the Consul’s brow was sad, and the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall, and darkly at the foe.
“Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down;
And if they once might win the bridge, what hope to save the town?”

Then out spoke brave Horatius, the Captain of the Gate:
“To every man upon this earth, death cometh soon or late;
And how can man die better than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers, and the temples of his Gods,

And for the tender mother who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses his baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?

Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, with all the speed ye may!
I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path, a thousand may well be stopped by three:
Now, who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?

Here are some lectures that helped me to form my views about the Christian life. My testimony is here.