My heart goes out to the people in Western North Carolina. The devastation is unlike anything I’ve seen. I feel a deep emotional connection to the places that Helene has destroyed. Even The Flowering Bridge of Lake Lure I wrote about in June (The Best Way to Cross to the Other Side) is gone. It was one of the most cherished trips I made this year.
It prompts the age-old question: Why does God permit suffering? Theologians have wrestled with this question for centuries. The entire Book of Job is devoted to answering a similar question. Why do bad things happen to good people? Amid a tragedy, few answers truly satisfy.
When I minister to a person in great suffering, I’ve realized it does no good to list the reasons for suffering proposed throughout the ages and doesn’t help to offer tidbits of encouraging advice. I just show up. I let them know I care. I join in their cries of loss and groans of pain. It sometimes feels like they’re in a deep, dark hole. Instead of being the cheerleader at the top of the hole (“Come up into the light!”), I crawl into the hole, sit next to them, and sigh.
The Book of Job is filled with a lot of bad advice Job received from his friends, which prompted God to finally say, “Who is this who darkens counsel with words of ignorance?” (38:2) I don’t want to be that person.
After pages of speculation as to why this was happening, and even after Job asks God to please explain, it’s not until Chapter 38 that Job receives an answer from God for his lament. It begins with the telling words, “Then the LORD answered Job out of the storm and said…” (38:1) It is in the storms of life that God sometimes speaks the loudest.
Instead of rationalizing divine justice, God beautifully catalogs for Job all the wonders of creation. When a person cries out with “Why!”, he or she is probably not going to get an answer. But it helps to take an inventory of what God has done to shore up the hope of what God will continue to do. God’s three-chapter response to Job could be summarized in three words, “I got this.”
I’ve heard the entirety of the bible can be summed up in three simple phrases, sometimes called ‘The Mantra of God’. Here they are: I love you. I am with you. Trust me.
May you hear God speaking the mantra into your heart in whatever you are going through.
(Photo by Kris Cordes, Catholic Conference Center)
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