a good God in the face of suffering

"How long, O LORD, will I call for help,
And You will not hear?
I cry out to You, “Violence!”
Yet You do not save.
Why do You make me see iniquity,
And cause me to look on wickedness?
Yes, destruction and violence are before me;
Strife exists and contention arises.
Therefore the law is ignored
And justice is never upheld.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
Therefore justice comes out perverted." Habakkuk 1:2-4

I was recently watching YouTube and came across a short video from a street preacher, where an old lady was asking some serious questions, such as: “where was your precious Jesus when thousands of children were raped and then massacred in churches all across Canada?”; we all have seen videos such as this one. I have personally been asked questions about the good God of the Bible and the presence of suffering in the world. I know that there are some people who use these types of questions to masquerade their evil deeds and quiet their guilty consciences, but I also know that there are lots of people who want to understand the relation between the Almighty good God of the Scriptures with the nasty and painful reality of suffering in this planet. After all, they are not the only ones to have such questions; the above insert is a prayer-request-complaint made by one of the holy prophets of ancient Israel. I do not think it is wrong to ask questions like this when one is dealing with pain and injustice in one’s life; otherwise, God would not have included it in his revelation, and the comforting thing about it is that Habakkuk was not the only man questioning God for the presence of suffering in the world. Together with him, the Scriptures reveals that David, Asaph, Moses, Job, Jeremiah and many others also complained of their situations and tried to comprehend why their good God, in whom they believed, allowed them to experience so much loss.

It is not my goal here to provide an in-dept theological answer as to why there is suffering, misery, loss or distress in this life. The Scriptures alone provide that answer better than I. My goal is to share the things I have done recently to keep believing in the good God of my salvation despite what I have been enduring lately. For the past months, I have been held tightly and closely to the burning furnace of trials like my 3 Hebrew amigos in ancient Babylon. I must confess that this situation has caused me to doubt and question everything I had believed up until this point in my walk with the Lord. I never thought that this doubting was even possible; I had always considered my faith to be strong in the Lord, not because I thought that I was stronger and holier that every one else, but due to the fact that my faith and trust in the Word of the Living God have always been sincere. In years past, I was willing to suffer martyrdom for the sake of my Messiah. Now, I am not so sure. In recent days, I have found myself living, as it were, biblical passages such as Psalms 77 and 88, where the writers not only complained to God about their situations, but also they seemed to impute God with some soft of misconduct for their lot in life. “…My soul refused to be comforted.” (Psalm 77:2 NAS95) resonated in my own soul for many weeks. My emotional and physical pains were so soul wrenching that words of encouragement, promises of God in the Bible or the company of loved ones did not alleviate the darkness that had engulf my own spirit. I despaired even of food, and that says tons since I love food, and the whole dynamic of food as God’s provision for our bodies always moves me to praise and wonderous awe of my Maker. Yet, food was not even powerful enough to produce satisfaction in my body that would also bring comfort to my inner being. And like Asaph in psalm 77, my soul wanted something more than comfort; I think it wanted God.

What have I done to fight this darkness and keep my faith in my Lord?, you would ask. Well, I have done and continue to do what I have always done in my Christian experience: pray and believe the Bible. At times, I have found myself praying over passages, such as, “…I shall remember the deeds of the LORD; surely I will remember Your wonders of old. I will meditate on all Your work and muse on Your deeds. Your way, O God, is holy; what god is great like our God?…” (Psalm 77:11-13 NAS95), and asking my God to grant me the strength and faith to believe in his goodness no matter how I feel. At other times, the words of David have refreshed my soul and given me hope for a better tomorrow: “…O taste and see that the LORD is good; how blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!…(Psalm 34:8 NAS95). And I cannot forget about my Lord’s own words: “…[i]n the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I(my Master, my victorious King Jesus) have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 NAS95). There is no magic formula to remain steadfast to my faith in Christ Jesus; there is no secret method to avoid denying Him. God chooses many times not to remove the suffering and not to reveal the reasons for the suffering like the way He did with Job. During intense distress, your own faith might not be sufficient to keep you from stumbling; I found that to be the case in my own life. Thank God we have passages such as, John 10:27-30 and 1 Peter 1:5, that guarantee the eternal security of all true believers. There you have it. That is what I have been doing to stay afloat, as it were, praying and remembering the revelation of God in his Bible.