Not everything makes you stronger.

Today I was flicking through FB updates, as I am sure all of you have been doing, and I saw some (supposedly) inspirational 'Christian' messages that, frankly, pissed me off.

Now this may seem like an extreme reaction but it just so happens that at this very point in time I am working my way through the book of Job and it really has a lot to say to these well meaning but very off putting posts.

To summarise, both of these posts said things along the lines of "Are you struggling? Don't worry about it, it is just God making you stronger".

Now on the surface this seems like a harmless thing to say and might raise the spirits of those who are struggling. I know many people who would believe it too.

But is it Gospel? 

Is this the way we want to portray God in our struggles?

What about a child that has been repeatedly sexually abused by her uncle? Is she being made stronger by the struggles she is going through?

Or the mother who has just lost her son to suicide. Is this going to make her stronger? Is God using this situation to teach her something?

Or the families in countries like Uganda. Maybe the mother has AIDS, the children are starving and the father has no work. Is God going to use watching his family die to make him a stronger man?

NO!!!!

God is not like this!

God is not some cruel sadist who uses the situations to teach us something. He is with us in those struggles yes, but as a teacher? No.

Job was a man who loved God and honoured him with all he did. In a matter of days he watched all his children die, his house and belongings be destroyed, and he ended up with a skin condition that left him with welts all over his body.

His friends came to see him and sit with him in his struggle. Some of them told him it was his fault, he was being punished by God. Others told him it was a test and he needed to prove his worth before God.

Both of these views are summed up in the idea that God uses our struggles to make us stronger. He is testing us or punishing us in order to teach us something.

Both of these ideas are ultimately refuted by God in the end of Job's story.

So where is God in the midst of our suffering if he is not using it to makes us better?

I need to use some of my own experiences to explain this.

My experiences in life nearly destroyed me. I was a burnt out, obese mental case with a drinking and smoking problem by the time God stepped in (see my blog "My Story").

It wasn't my experiences that made me stronger. No amount of sexual abuse, alcohol abuse or depression can teach you to be stronger. And God didn't use them that way.

Rather it was my experience of GOD that made me stronger. It was his love, his healing hand, his peace, and the fact that I knew he was as angry and upset at what had been done to me as I was that grew me into the person I am.

He never asked me to look at my experiences as anything other than the awful, soul destroying, upsetting events that they were. There is NOTHING good about them, nothing redeeming, nothing uplifting that can be taken from some of the things I have been through. But there is redemption in the name of Jesus. And it was that, not the crap, that helped me grow.

The same can be said of Job. After his friends talk he cries out to the Lord seeking answers for the pain and grief that he is experiencing. And it is the power and strength and majesty of God that gives him peace, NOT the death of his children, not the loss of his possessions and not the illness that plagues him. Yes, he gets more children in the end, but do you think he forgets the sadness and pain of the death of the first lot?

God isn't using our crap to teach us stuff. Sh*t happens, it's life and the nature of a fallen world that awaits the return of Christ. BUT he is in these times with us, crying with us and bringing us peace and strength to move forward.

To say otherwise makes God a monster and trivializes people's pain and suffering.

We live moments of pain and can carry that pain and sadness with us for the rest of our lives.

I am just grateful that I believe in a God who conquered death and that one day, not in this life time, I will know no more pain, cry no more tears and see no more death.