Subtitle: Is God Playing Fair?
Okay, let me get straight to the point. These past couple of weeks I have found my physical strength declining. I don’t feel bad, just tired. I have no stamina. I can’t do a minor chore around the house without becoming physically drained. Currently I am weaning myself from the high level of steroids I have been taking (under my doctor’s supervision) and I am hoping that this helps. Just having had surgery followed by whole brain radiation therapy probably doesn’t help, but I would have hoped that, by now, the effects from these would be declining. It seems just the opposite. Is this “condition” going to improve or is this the way it will be from now on? I am beginning to have a private pity-party.
When I was first diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma I asked God, “Why me?”. His response was, “Why not you?”. Well, I had no good response to His question. But I still wonder, why me? I thought I had been doing God’s work. For all practical purposes I was a pretty good kind of guy. So why should this be happening to me? Is God not very happy with me? Am I being punished for a past or current sin? Or is it as simple as accepting that, in life, “Stuff Happens”?
Note: I really have not thought this through completely but am just going to ramble on for a while collecting my thoughts. Please bear with me.
Since I was first diagnosed I believed that God has given us this challenge for a reason and that reason is to provide an example to others on how God is guiding us through this journey and how He continues to bless us as we continue our battle. I still believe that. So maybe I am not being punished but rather am being used as an instrument of God’s work. Okay. That I can gladly accept. Okay. My pity-party is over. Thank you Lord. I can accept that something bad is happening to me. But what about other people. Is God intentionally making bad stuff happen to them so that they can do His work? I don’t know. Maybe. What about all of the good people who needlessly die for no good reason other than they happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time or because of the carelessness of a drunken driver or the political war that need not be fought. How are they going to continue to do God’s work?
As I am writing this I have the news on the television and they are currently reporting on the gulf coast oil spill, its impact on the environment and the impact it is having on the area’s fishing and tourism industry. How can God let this happen?
Just why does God let bad things happen to good people anyway? This is an age-old question. Actually, when we ask this question, what we are really asking is, “Is God really playing fair?” Now as to whether or not God is “playing fair” the answer is “Yes”.
Malachi 3:6 -- For I the Lord do not change…
God is consistent. He does not change. He does not change the rules. He is righteous (straight). He is consistent in how he judges.
The whole premise to the question about God letting bad things happen to good people is based upon God’s true definition of “good people”. According to some Theologians, no one is “good”.
Romans 3:9-10 -- What then? Are we any better off?* No, not at all; for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin, as it is written: ‘There is no one who is righteous, not even one;
Genesis 8:21 -- for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth
Psalm 143:2 -- Do not enter into judgement with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
Okay. If no one is “good”, then bad things don’t happen to good people. We are all bad people so it’s all right that bad things happen to us? I have a really hard time accepting this point of view.
Another point of view about bad things happening to good people is found in the Bible itself in the Book of Job. “So named from Job, its chief character, the book deals with an ageless question, one that is puzzling to every generation - the problem of human suffering, particularly the affliction of the righteous. The reader is given an account of the sufferings of the pious Patriarch Job, of the argument carried on between Job and his friends as to the cause of his sufferings, and finally, of the solution to his difficulty. The book’s principal aim is to refute the popular view that all suffering is the result of sin in the life of the sufferer.” (http://www.holybible.com/resources/KJV_DFND/summary.htm)
Now this I can accept. The Bible tells us, through Job’s story, that all suffering is NOT the result of sin. Okay. Then what is it that results in suffering? If not sin, then what? Here’s what I believe, and I have referred to this in a previous posting (see post: “God’s Laws, Sin, and the Consequences of Sin” posted on May 31, 2010). God does not make bad things happen to us, life itself does. Let me use my personal example.
I have been afflicted with a very rare form of cancer. Why did such a bad thing happen to me? My research on my cancer reveals the following known causes of leiomyosarcoma:
external radiation therapy
Thorotrast [a contrast Xray dye no longer used]
arsenical pesticides and medications
chlorophenols
phenoxy herbicides
dioxin
vinyl chloride
immunosuppressive drugs
alkylating agents
androgen-anabolic steroids
human immunodeficiency virus
human herpes virus type 8
chronically edematous arms after radical mastectomy for breast cancer
Post transplant immunosuppression
thyroid disorders
autoimmune disease
cyclophosphamide
Well, which one of these is the source? I have no idea. I have worked around chemicals most of my career and have most likely had some sort of contact with one or more of those listed above. Let’s just assume that during one of my jobs I got a vinyl chloride molecule up my nose once and, as a result, my cancer evolved. Does that mean that I got cancer just because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Probably. But didn’t God place me in that wrong place at the wrong time? Maybe. Why maybe? First of all, it was my decision to be where I was when I was there. I have free will. God made it that way. But I also believe that God has a plan for me. As I have said many times in this collection (and will likely say many times again) God has given us this challenge for a reason and that reason is to provide an example to others on how God is guiding us through this journey and how He continues to bless us as we continue our battle. So did God put me in the situation that resulted in cancer for his own purposes or is God simply taking advantage of a situation that life thrust upon me? I don’t know. In my mind it really doesn’t matter. For whatever reason I have cancer and, as a result, I have a new job, given to me by God in order to advance His kingdom.
1 Corinthians 10:13 -- No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
Romans 5:3-5 -- And not only that, but we* also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope..
Romans 8:28 -- We know that all things work together for good* for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
So, have I answered the question “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?” No, not really. I think I’ll let people who are much smarter than me wrestle with this question between now and the final coming of our Lord. I’m just not going to worry about it. I trust God and will follow Him wherever He leads me.
Lord, I don’t know how I got my cancer. But Lord, if by having cancer I can better do your work then I will continue to endure and let my light shine as you have instructed me. Your will be done.
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