As a pastor, I have spent a good deal of time visiting people in the hospital. Sometimes it’s a happy occasion – like the birth of a child. Most of the time it’s a difficult season for someone enduring moments of pain, fear and possibly death. I always find it hard to have words to say in those moments, words that don’t sound like a time-worn cliche. I want to make everything better. I want it all to just go away. I want to promise them that they will be healed – but I can’t. I’m not God. I don’t get to make these decisions. Don’t get me wrong – I have seen God heal people, spare lives and relieve suffering on many occasions. In fact, they have been some of the best moments of my life. I have also seen God allow people to remain ill and even die. How do we understand that duality?
Issues like that get to the heart of one of the most profound of human needs – safety. One of the things every person wants to know from the earliest moments of life is, “Will I be safe?” This is one of the basic needs of infants. They want to know in the vastness of their new world that someone nearby loves them and will help them when they are hungry or sick. In some ways, not a lot changes throughout life. As kids, we learn that bad things can happen to us when we’re not careful, and sometimes when we are. As adults, we learn to do everything possible to create a safe environment for our families.
We eat healthy and exercise regularly. We try to live in safe neighborhoods and build good schools. We buy car seats, alarm systems and insurance plans. We protect ourselves with fire departments, police and the military. We save money for a rainy day. We do everything we can to be as safe as possible. And we should, because we live in a fallen, dangerous world where evil and calamity exist. Yet none of these things can really ever guarantee our safety. Where is God in this?
In moments like this, I think it is always helpful to remember that God didn’t create the world to be this way. He made it perfect and good, a place devoid of suffering, strife or death. We actually are to blame for the entrance of evil into our world. The Bible tells us that it was when humans rebelled against God and abandoned Him as their spiritual father that things went awry. Our revolt against God created a rift, a chasm, between us and Him. As a result of that separation, evil, suffering and death became a part of our lives.
God could have chosen to distance Himself from us and ignore our pain, but He didn’t. He still loved us – even when we didn’t love Him. This is why Jesus came. He entered our world as one of us – God in human form; to die in our place and build a way back to God. For those who accept Him and His way, God promises to give us what we were created for; a place of peace and safety, a place of comfort and joy – His eternal Kingdom.
Jesus told us that we can begin to experience aspects of that Kingdom while we are still living in a fallen world. Yet, we will never experience it fully until He returns to set the world right (Revelation 21.1-4). This is our dilemma – we are created for a perfect, sinless place but we live in the fallenness of of our own making. God will make all things perfect again, but not yet.
The Bible says that we should expect that God will both deliver us in times of trouble (Psalm 34.17) and use the pain and suffering in our lives to help us change and grow (Romans 8 ). I don’t know about you, but I like the first part of that plan a lot better than the second part. But I have to admit that I have grown as much from adversity as I have from abundance.
The truth is God sees things from an eternal perspective. He realizes we will live forever and that this world is but a brief moment in that eternity. His promise of safety to us is the safety that comes from an eternal life with Him in His Kingdom. This is a miraculous certainty in the midst of the uncertain chaos of life. Beyond that, God helps those whose hearts are completely His (2 Chronicles 16.9). He heals, He delivers, He guides, He loves, He supports and He blesses. Yet, He never completely removes the influences and consequences of sin from our lives. These we must continue to endure as a reminder of our waywardness and need. God’s promise to us in this life is not to drape us in spiritual bubble wrap so nothing bad can penetrate our life, but to be there with us no matter what (Matthew 28.20). Sometimes His presence brings deliverance from evil, sometimes it brings comfort in the midst of evil.
At the end of the day, all the insurance policies, alarm systems, armies and healthy living cannot compare to God’s offer of eternal life and companionship on earth. True safety can only be found in God.
What do you fear? What fears do you struggle to commit to God?
Rick posted on October 28, 2009
Sounds like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this series is a great way to tie faith into this.