The Question

                I am grumpy.  I have no patience or motivation to do my chores.  I am having a hard time focusing on words to choose as I write.  Why?  I haven’t eaten in twelve hours.

                Just twelve hours without food has changed me more than I would have expected.  I’ve fasted at lunchtime before, but this is the first time I’ve tried to skip two meals in a row.  And I am not sure my resolve is going to make it through the night.  I might end up breaking my fast before breakfast.

                Why am I fasting?  It has to do with a conversation with a friend, the thoughts on my mind for quite a while, and the problems of nations half a world away.

                Last night, I had dinner with a friend who went to grade school through high school with me.  It was very fun to reconnect!  She is in love with Jesus, and it shows through everything that she says.  It was very refreshing and inspiring to spend a couple of hours with her.

                Earlier this year, she spent six months in Africa, and she hopes to return when she can.  Her love for Africa gives her a sensitivity to the issues of poverty, corruption, and abuse that are so rampant throughout the continent.  Some of the stories she shared with me are unbelievably heartbreaking.

                We ended up talking about an issue that I have written about before, and about which I’d already drafted a second blog.  The issue:  the suffering of this world seems to prove that a loving and powerful God does not exist.

                The problem is that human logic creates an equation that looks something like this:  An all-powerful God who is all good would prevent the suffering of the people he loves.  In other words, an all-powerful God plus a good and loving God equals no suffering in the world.  Since there IS suffering in the world, God must either be powerless to stop suffering or lack the desire (the love) to stop it.

                The equation makes sense.  After all, what loving parent would not do everything in his power to prevent his child from being hit by a car, or contracting a disease, or suffering from hunger?  If it were in my power to prevent these things from happening to my son, I would not hesitate or think twice.  So why does God react differently?

                If a man were to have the means to feed his child but instead allowed the child to starve to death, we would not call him a good and loving father.  We would call him a monster and throw him in jail!  So how can we call God good and loving when thousands of children die of starvation every day?

                This issue is all over the Bible.  It’s all over literature.  It’s all over the tv.  The question is everywhere; the answer is nowhere. 

                This is it.  This, to me, is where the claims of the Bible fall apart.  It’s not the resurrection, because a God who can do anything can easily take human form, die, and come back to life.  It’s not creation, or the flood, or the exodus, or any of the other fantastic stories in the Bible, because a God who created scientific principles can easily transcend and manipulate them.  But the claim that God loves people despite allowing so much evil and suffering to fall on them, even though it is in his power to prevent it, just does not make sense.

                God never offers an answer to the question of why he allows (causes?) suffering.  Job asks him pretty boldly, and God’s response (after a significant time of waiting) starts like this:

“‘Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge?  Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

“‘Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand.  Who marked off its dimensions?  Surely you know!  Who stretched a measuring line across it?’”  (Job 38:2-5)

God’s response goes on for four chapters like this.  I wish I could post the whole thing for you, but instead I’ll just give you a link.  It’s God at his sarcastic best.  It’s awesome!  Until, of course, we remember that God is saying that he is not going to answer Job’s (our) question. 

Job’s response is, “‘Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know…  My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.’”  (Job 42:3b,5-6)

Basically, God’s response is to give Job a clearer picture of who he is and who Job is.  And that is enough for Job. 

Can it be enough for us?

Can I be satisfied with not having an answer to my question, but instead to know who God is, and who I am?  We crave answers to our questions; we need resolution and order and sense.  When things are left unanswered we feel off-balance, in limbo, anxious.  Can it be that peace comes not through finding the answer, but in finding the God who refuses to give the answer?

Because our equation doesn’t make sense, we conclude that God is either not all-powerful or not loving.  Could we conclude instead that our equation is somehow at fault?  That the God who measured out the earth’s foundations and perfectly calculated its dimensions can transcend an equation created by the logic of men?  Can we observe the hungry children around the world and then look their Father in the eye (so to speak) and say, “You are good and loving, even though you allowed this to happen.”?

I hope we can.  Imagine a life that rejects God because of this broken equation.  That person will suffer during his lifetime, as all people do.  But he will be alone and without hope.  He will have only his logic to comfort him.

Now imagine a life that accepts God despite his refusal to fit into our equation.  That person will suffer during his lifetime, as all people do.  But he will have a Savior holding his hand throughout every trial.  He will have the comfort of a God who not only shows compassion for his pain, but who left the comfort of Heaven to join us in our suffering.  He will have the hope of a future in Heaven where there is no more suffering.  He will have the hope of a God powerful enough to redeem any amount of pain to be used for good.  When he cries out, “God, why don’t you DO something?”, he will know that, in truth, God has already done something.

So…what does this have to do with my fast?  I’ll let you know…tomorrow.