I was talking to some friends on the way home from church today and an interesting comment was made. It went something along these lines:
"It seems that the people who are suffering have more hope in God than the family members and loved ones that watch them suffer. It is the watchers that tend to blame God."
This comment came out of all of us recollecting various stories of people who had suffered and those that had blamed God. This is a generalisation but one that seems to hold true to various people in various circumstances.
For example, one friend of ours has a sister that is in serious pain and illness. She clings to God. He is angry at God for what she is going through.
So we came up with a hypothesis of why this is.
For anyone who has been in suffering for a long period of time, there tends to be a point when you know that it may never change. With long term illness or mental disorders, divorce, death etc, there is a point when you either accept that the pain will be there for a long time, perhaps forever, or you give up. If you give up then this tends to lead to isolation from others, depression, and suicide or, in faith terms, ditching your faith and hating the world around you. Acceptance of the pain doesn't mean that you are ok with what is happening, but it tends to pull you outward, draws you into acknowledging that you won't survive this on your own strength. In faith terms, this tends to mean a deepening of faith.
This is because in times of weaknesses we need someone to cling to. When we are children and we are hurting we don't blame our parents for it, we cling to them because they are the biggest, strongest people they know and they may be able to fix it.
It is similar to faith at times. God is the biggest thing we know and so in times of struggle when our pain is too much for us to bear we cling to our faith, hoping that it will give us strength.
The people who are not directly involved in the suffering but are affected by it (our friends and family) may not understand our need to cling to God. Because for them all they see is someone they love in pain. And they need someone to blame. They need to be able to get angry and yell at someone for the hurt they see us going through. It is often through witnessing pain that people lose faith in God and God's goodness.
Now the complete opposite can be true in both cases. The sufferer can lose faith because they reject what is happening to them and need to blame someone, and the watcher can have faith because it is the only thing they have left to lean on.
But, and here is my point, in times of suffering we all need someone to hold or someone to blame.
I find that really profound.
It speaks of a deep-seated need within us all for love and comfort.
It speaks of a desire for justice.
It speaks of God.
See, if we are all just random atoms that came together and started an evolutionary chain, why would we need justice in a situation that is outside of anyone's control? Wouldn't we just write it off as survival of the fittest and grieve, but not get angry?
I would argue that it is because at the very core of who we are we know that there is something wrong with our world. Children are not meant to die. People are not meant to suffer. Mental illness should not exist. And we know that, everyone of us, we feel it deep inside. So when we do watch a loved one in pain we get angry and the wrongness of it and need something to blame.
We tend to blame God.
And yet we are pointing in the wrong direction.
It is not God's fault that this happens. It is because there is something really wrong with the world. It is called sin. We are broken. Creation is broken. I don't mean that because a child lies to their parents they then get cancer! That's ridiculous. Illness is not a punishment.
What I mean by sin is that we as humanity, not just as individuals, have decided to not love God and not love other people and not respect creation. We have pushed God out of the picture and wanted to make ourselves God for millennia. We haven't loved other people and so rape, prostitution, porn, child abuse, theft...you name it... happens because humanity has no love for each other. We haven't respected creation so we have used and abused resources, so some kids die of obesity related illness while others starve. Carcinogenic are our fault, as is skin cancer from a depleted ozone.
Our desire to run this world our way, instead of God's way, has meant that creation has broken to the point where our own cells are in rebellion against us. Death is a part of everything, sickness invades our lives. And because it is all consuming, because it affects everything, because it is so huge, we point to the biggest thing we know and blame them. We blame God.
And yet it is NOT God's fault. God didn't want my friend's baby to die of cot death at only a few months old. God didn't want me to have schizophrenia. God doesn't want our friends sister to be in constant pain. God hates sin and death and proved it by showing us that it is defeated! God showed us that there is life after all the crap by dying first and coming back to life. God showed us by example.
In our times of deepest struggle God is there. God is breathing live and love. God is giving strength and hope. God is speaking a message of salvation and redemption that means even though we go through crap now it will not be forever. We will be renewed. We will live without pain.
So to all of those that are struggling...there is hope.
And to all of those watching...there is hope.
And to all of us who get angry and confused and cry for justice...there is hope!
Don't give up, don't walk away from faith, don't lose hope. God was there, God is here, God will always be there.
