Thursday, Feb. 17th Update from Joni

Thursday, February 17th Update from Joni:

I’m always inspired when I read your posts… sometimes, however, I’m challenged. Like the comment someone posted on our radio page – it was about her Christian friend who died after a long, painful battle against cancer. “Please explain to me why a good God would allow such a godly Christian woman to suffer so needlessly. It doesn’t seem fair,” she wrote. I sat for a long minute just staring at her question. My heart went out to this woman (not to mention her dying friend!); after all, her question was honest. Sometimes, though, we act as if there were some imaginary court in the sky where God must answer to something called “fairness.” What we forget is that God Himself is the court; He invented fairness. What could we possibly measure His fairness against?

Besides, what makes us think that even if He explained all His ways we would be able to understand them? It would be like pouring million-gallon truths into our one-ounce brains. God wasn’t kidding when He said, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are… my thoughts [higher] than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). I remember many years ago, I thought I was able to put together the puzzle pieces of my suffering so that it all made sense. That was then. I’ve seen too much in this broken world, and experienced too much pain to think I can understand God’s ways; so now, for me, wisdom is not the ability to see things from His point of view; it’s the ability to trust Him when we can’t.

Dr. Peter Kreeft said, “When it comes to suffering, God does not try to get himself off the hook. Jesus is God on the hook.” Wow. There’s wisdom for you. Jesus knows; He cares; He’s been there; and He came out on the other side of suffering, so He could help us do the same. By the way, in my reply to that radio post, I mentioned my books When God Weeps or A Step Further which tackle this subject more deeply. Give them a read if you’d like to understand more. And thanks to each one of you who posts, whether an encouragement, a special Bible verse, an insight you’ve learned, or, in this case, a really gut-wrenching question. May God help us all to see that Jesus is our only Answer.