Recently my good friend and very dear brother in Christ, Eric, lead pastor of The Crossing At Woodland Fellowship gave a talk on the perennially thorny question: Why do bad things happen to good people? It was a good talk. Eric has what it takes to give good talks – A gift for gab, an understanding of his culture, a love for his people, and an unrelenting, uncompromising passion for the Word of God. And it got my thinker going, especially over how this question connects with the theme of this blog: Sole Delight.
My first thought was that the question itself, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” is flawed, but I think we already knew that. “Good” and “people” are oxymoronic. We think there are good people in the world because we don’t really understand the horror of sin. But, once we recognize that sin is real, pervasive, and incredibly ugly, we remember that there really is no such thing as “good people.” But let’s not get hung up here. We know what is meant.
Second, it brought to mind a conversation I had with David Clark, Professor of Theology at Bethel Seminary back around my second or third year there. I was considering writing a paper on the problem of evil, and was chatting with him about it. I suggested that the answer might lay in our incorrect definitions of both “good” and “bad.” He said that I wasn’t the first to think that, and that I might want to go with that thought. I didn’t, opting instead to write on something else.
But, like I said, the talk got me to thinking about that again. Is it possible that we have a wrong idea of what is evil and what is good? We seem to define both terms with an eye toward the effect that an event has on “me.” If it fits my notion of what I think I need or want (health, money, dopamine…) then I call it “good.” But if it makes me sick, poor or unhappy, then it is “bad.” I realize that is a drastic oversimplification, but, for the sake of the discussion, allow me to be simple for a moment. Because, when it all comes down to it, the complexity is really nothing more than a matter of degree. Really bad stuff is stuff that makes me really sad, really poor or really sick and really dead. Or, it’s a matter of contrast. When really good people (like, say, children or Randy Pausch) experience those kind of things, then this is really bad, and we ask theologically faulty questions like, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”.
We need to start by redefining “good” and “bad.” Rather than think of it in terms of what an event does to us, we need to think of what it does to God’s glory. Of course, that means we first need to learn to value the glory of God above our own self-defined “happiness.” We need to come to the point that we understand that God’s first and foremost object of affection and worship and joy is in the only thing worthy of affection, worship, and joy, and that is Himself. Think about it: If we worship anything other than God, that’s called idolatry. If God were to worship anything other than God, that would also be idolatry. It is only when God and all of God’s creation comes to value Him above all else that we find things coming together as they were meant to be, and we discover what real joy and happiness is. As long as our affections are on anything other than God, we are loving the wrong thing, and we will always be unhappy.
God knows that. He knows that we can’t be happy until our hearts are turned away from the stuff of this world so that we love only Him. So, because he loves us, He comes to us and removes those things that can lead us away from Him and His glory, away from treasuring Him above all else, away from finding our pleasure in the only One who is truly pleasant, our purpose in the only One who is truly purposeful, and our hope in the only One who is truly solid and true.
Maybe you’ve heard it asked – or maybe you have wrestled with the question yourself – Doesn’t God’s passion for His own glory stand at odds with my desire to be happy? The answer, of course, is that God’s passion for His own glory and my happiness are not opposites, but are, in fact, the same thing. The goal of the first is the goal of the second. And the means to those identical goals are also identical.
I have come to believe that the same is true for God’s allowance of trouble and suffering in my life on one hand, and His love for me on the other. By human wisdom, they appear to be opposites. But, in truth, they are really the same thing. His love compels Him to come to me and remove anything that could draw my affections away from Him and place it on something, or someone, else. That hurts. And the more I love that thing, the more it hurts. But also, the more I love it, the greater the danger that that love could supplant my love for the One who gave it. When that happens, I become an idolater, and God takes second (or third, or fourth, or 125th) place in my affections. We need to grasp just how awful that is, and therefore how loving it is of God to let that be taken from us.
This brings to mind another friend who has now gone home. Dan Roelofs was the founding pastor of Woodland Fellowship (the predecessor of The Crossing @ Woodland) who struggled for 15 months with a cancer that ultimately took his life on his 33rd birthday. During that painful journey, Dan kept a journal, and in that journal he wrote of his mixture of suffering and joy. And, in the process, I think he settled the problem of suffering for me, once and for all.
Thank you for calling me your ‘beloved.’ Thank you for the trial of cancer that has shown me that you are enough for joy. Your power and love are so great that not even cancer can remove the joy from my life. Thank you for communicating your heart to me through your Word. You are a wonderful, powerful Savior. To walk with you has been the greatest adventure of my life.
Lord, I open my hands to you. What you want is my desire. What you want is so much better than what I would seek to provide for myself. I want to receive from you. I choose to rest and stop trying to meet my own needs. You are my provider, my Master, my Lord and Savior, and I trust you. Have your way in me.
It’s here where this takes us from the theological to the pastoral. How do we answer the “theologically flawed” but pastorally very valid question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”.
It’s not an easy answer, not because it is complex, but because the answer itself asks us to give up even more than we have already lost. What we have lost is something or someone that is very, very dear to us. Pastorally, we need to recognize the reality of that loss, and the depth of the pain. It’s real, and comfort is needed.
But, to really answer the question, we must ask for more to be given up. We must ask that we give up the idea that God’s love for us means that we should never experience this kind of loss, or that He would never require of us something this precious. We must let go of the notion that we should define the manner of God’s love.
The truth is that God’s love for us is not about making us feel good. Rather, it is about Him equipping as and molding us into people who find our inexpressible joy, delight and fulfillment in Him alone. We think we know what will make us happy, but God knows that there is really only one thing that will: Him. He is far, far, far more valuable, more precious, more delightful, more wonderful than anything, and I do mean anything this world has to offer.
This means that Romans 8:28-30 is more than a glib throw-away line that sounds nice when “all things” includes nothing worse than a bent fender on Daddy’s old Fairlane. No, it is an amazing, profound promise that God’s purpose for us is glorification – that state in which we are fit to see Him face-to-face and spend forever in the incomparable joy of His unfettered fellowship, and that Hw will used all things, all things, yes ALL THINGS to get us there.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30 (NASB)
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