Am I Angry At God?

Why did God allow this to happen? Why me? If Jesus truly is the sovereign Lord, then why did he not prevent it? These are inevitable questions in the face of suffering. And ones that my lips have uttered. It is difficult to address these questions intellectually without sounding trite. I think the pain and suffering my family and I have gone through has at least earned me the right to try. With issues like this, I have a tendacy to get long winded. I hope I can develop my thoughts without this posting getting too long.

Here is the paradox: God is good and loving. God is all-powerful and in control. Yet God sometimes allows suffering and tragedy. Our view of God is tested In the face of great hardship. One response is to deny that God is good and hold that He is unfair and cruel. Another is to deny that God is in control and able to prevent evil. Another is to deny God altogether and blame suffering on random chance.

For the Christian, we have to face the paradox. We believe in God. We believe the Bible that teaches that God is loving and that God is in control. However, such beliefs are severly tested in the midst of a crisis. Mine have been.

How have I handled this? To deny that God is gracious, merciful and loving would deny everything that I believe in. But at some points during the heat of the trial, the temptation had been there. Feelings of anger had risen up. I had feared for losing my faith, something more precious to me than gold. And cried out to God that my faith would not fail. I remembered Jesus warning Peter of the trial he would go through before Jesus was crucified. The Lord tenderly warned him that Satan had asked to sift Peter as wheat. Jesus promised Peter that he would pray for Peter that his faith would not fail through it all. I believe the also Lord interceded for me.

As I thought rationally about it, it became absurd to deny God's goodness. To do so would be for me to judge God and find fault with Him. But that would necessitate putting myself above God. It would be saying that God's morality is beneath mine (e.g. God's level of goodness does not meet my standards). Yet people do it all the time. People are angry with God, even furious. In essence they are believing themselves to know better than God and therefore more wise and righteous than God, even though they may not realize they are doing it.

Secondly, if God is not good, where does love and goodness come from? If not from God, where?
Inherent is us but not in God? If it were inherent is us, it would have had to come from God anyway since He created us. If he had to power to create goodness and love in us, He would by necessity have to be good and loving. When a person curses God as cruel and unjust, they do it with the sense of goodness that God poured into their heart from His own heart in the first place .

Another point is that my life was been so blessed. Sure there have been challenges and hardships, most of them light and momentary. For the most part, my life has been filled with goodness. If God were not good, then why have I received such blessing from him? We are going through a great trial. But this is something very rare and unusual in my life.
As painful and hard as our trial has been, God has been so good to us in the midst of it. First and foremost is the miraculous intervention of God in our situation. By all counts, Brent should not have survived what he went through. Let me tell you that more than one doctor has used the term "amazing" and "miracle" when speaking of Brent's case. When I think of how close Brent came to not making it, I am in awe and so very grateful to the Lord. He answered our prayers. This little baby boy who had brought so much joy to us before his illness, now brings even more. When see him smile again after all he went through, it fills our heart to the fullest.

And God has blessed us in the love and support that we have received from others. Any doubt of God's goodness is wiped away when I look at the dear people who have poured out their love in our lives during this time. We have seen Christ's love through the generousity, help, compassion, concern, prayer and support of these friends.

What of the idea of God not being in control and the pain we have suffered just came about from random natural causes? If that were the case, then I could not really have any true hope. If God were not in control, then I could not pray to him for deliverance and have any expectation that he would answer. I would rather that God be in control and have to face the paradox of why he allowed it to happen, then to imagine no one behind the wheel of the universe.

I have not addressed the question of why God allowed our trial nor why He allows any evil in the first place. That will have to be in another posting. But suffice it to say that I can not deny God's goodness nor his power. I don't believe it is wrong to cry out to God, "Why, Lord?" in the midst of the battle. But where else can I turn to for goodness. For from him alone comes every good and perfect gift. Lord, I humble myself under your mighty hand that you may raise us up in due time. Praise be to your Name, forever!