This evening’s entry was scheduled to be on Essentials, but some news I received today sent me over the edge and something I had planned to write on later has to be expressed now at least in part.
I don’t know if you’ve ever raged at God, but I know I have. I’ve been aware of the scriptures and the charismaniac hokey-cokey, hocus pocus of spiritual cliches that we just ‘say’ and things are different. I know that and I’ve practiced it and with the exception of the charismaniac wacky stuff, after I’ve calmed down, the Word of God and His presence has brought some consolation.
That doesn’t stop me from raging at God from time to time. When I say raging at God, I don’t mean having a go at the circumstances. I have the sheer temerity and stupidity (but honesty) to question the sovereign nature of God. Here’s a few reasons why and for those who subscribe to the old wives fable that ‘these things come in threes’, I put it to you that those maths are seriously flawed.
One friend gets stitched up badly to the tune of thousands of pounds because he chooses to trust someone to rent his house out for him while he goes through some difficult times with divorce and financial issues. Only for that person to turn around and pocket for himself thousands of pounds in rent while the friend finds himself on the brink of being taken to court by the mortgage lenders for those thousands off pounds.
Another friend is a young bubbly, bouncy, friendly woman with tons going for her in many areas of life. A loyal friend, she embarks on a faithful relationship with a man and they are trying for a baby because she’s eager to give birth and is at that right age. She has an operation and they discover she’s got cancer which may affect her chances of surviving to see her wedding day, let alone ever being able to give birth.
Another friend has to nurse her sister through the life-sapping and life debilitating effects of another form of cancer, holding out all hope in the God who heals to do the miraculous again and bring life into her sister who has committed her life to Christ. Not only does the friend nurse her sister she also has to support the devastated family – husband and young children who are traumatised at seeing the heart of the household wither away so helplessly. Then despite the tears, fasting and prayers through the night a husband becomes a widower, children lose their mother and my friend says goodbye to her second close family member in five years.
Another friend who is a conscientious, devoted and outstanding worker in the restaurant is verbally abused by her boss and in the meeting where she was hoping to have the grievance addressed, her contract is terminated and she is the one who has to leave the emloy of the restaurant, with little recourse for an effective appeal against the dismissal.
Another friend was out of work for two years, his confidence and self-worth had taken a battering and the once industrious and chherful man was unsure if he’d ever find work again. He’s not unemployable and he’s still relatively young with at least another 30 years of working life in him, yet he’s struggling until what appears a golden opportunity arises. He’s put in a project earning more than he’s ever done before with supportive and caring colleagues. Yet the management of the organisation is suspect and the viability of the project comes unstuck dangerously and after merely a few months just getting to grips with the new job and finding his feet again and building some sort of confideence, he’s given his redundancy notice. Not only that but he’s also given some information about an innocuous mole near his ear may not have been that innocuous after all.
For the time being, there’s a final friend who after graduating from university was looking to settle and build a life with his girlfriend. One minute he’s working merrily accepting a wage that allows him to just get by without stretching him. He and his girlfriend get married and it appears as if all hell is let loose in that first year. The good news is that they find out that they’re expecting their firstborn, but her place of work proves to be obstructive rather than supportive at this crucial time in their lives. This has a negative effect on her and their relationship. He realises their income will need to be adjusted to take on board the new birth, but his efforts are hindered by a troublesome bully of a new boss at his new work and other office politics conspire to frustrate him at work, just as the family prepare to move into their new home. So as the delivery arrives safe and sound, the new born is brought into a world of uncertainty.
These aren’t pieces of fiction or something I made up, these are real lives of people I know and love who are enduring these outrages, injustices, upheavals, traumas and crises. That’s not even beginning to unpack my own issues which in themselves are worthy of at least a pause for thought.
Neither are these stories taken from the last ten years or so. These are live stories that have happened in recent weeks.
Now I could just slip back into some old wisdom that informed me that such is life and then you die. I could just shrug my shoulders and refer to the fact that this is part of the package and I should just get on with it. There’s also that argument that says I shouldn’t complain because there are some who have it worse off than these people.
There may very well be worse cases and people, but I’ve tended to find the comparison thing rather trite and dismissive of the real pain and suffering of people going through.
So that’s why I rage against God. That’s why my heart breaks at the level of agony and pain that my friends and I go through with some of the … stuff … that happens.
What do I hope to get out of raging at God? The opportunity to ‘get it off my chest’? That therapeutic benefit of expressing the rage rather than bottling it all up? Whatever I hope to get from it doesn’t alter the circumstances.
Yet what it does do, is it opens me up for some interesting dialogue with my Father. It opens me up to hearing Him talk about His Son and the plan they had from the beginning about the way humanity was always meant to be. It opens me up to what the Cross really means in different perspectives. It opens me up to why the rage is futile and the desperate faith and hope is essential. It opens me up to consider His eternal narrative that does not provide answers for the question of these injustices and traumas of now, but puts it in the larger perspective of the promise that one day the tears, pain, suffering and sheer wickedness that brings this about will be erased. It opens me up to His real presence that not only consoles, but comforts and strengthens in the present to walk through what is the very real shadow of death without fearing evil.
There maybe some victories along the way. Maybe justice might be seen to be done to those who have inflicted such misery on others. Maybe the miraculous healing might take place and an even better job or financial settlement may come out of some of the situations. Even if that doesn’t happen it does not affect the greater reality of the presence and sovereignty of God. Neither should it shift my relational position to Him by faith. It should strengthen my resolve to seek Him all the more through the tears and questions why and lonely nights wrestling with the issues and painful days going through the motions whilst having to address my own baggage.
I don’t follow Jesus to get glib and easy answers, or because nothing wrong will ever happen to me or my loved ones. I follow Him because despite these gross travesties of life, He remains the Truth, the Way and the Life. His suffering sacrifice on the cross was not defeat, but victory over these issues and the promise for all those who choose to follow Him that He can help us cope through these and overcome some of these in the journey to the culmination of all things when all wickedness is eradicated and righteousness rules for eternity.
He is the only hope that makes my life worth living.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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