It sounds pretty cheesy, but I chose to call this blog “joy through Christ” for a reason. That reason is because I believe that through Christ, any person can freely obtain incorruptible, everlasting joy and happiness. Considering the state of our lives and our world, that sounds like a pretty tall order, but I hold this belief true. So what answers does this provide for all our suffering on earth? Sometimes very bad things happen to good people, even the best people. Is this consistent with God being a loving, powerful God? To best reach the answer to such a question, one must start with understanding the nature and history of humanity.
It is easy to see that life isn’t anywhere near perfect. It has pain, difficulty, and tragedy. Although the bible tells us earth was initially perfect, the current state of the world is a result of sin entering. Since then, sin has brought death and suffering to all humankind. To be completely clear, death is not an arbitrary punishment of sin that God decided. It is, instead, a direct result of sin, which God wants to protect us from. To use an example, God tells people not to lie. This is not because he doesn’t like it, or he doesn’t want humans to succeed, but because he sees its true effects. Lying destroys relationships, hurts people, and causes spiritual death. In other words, when God commands something, he does so because he wants what’s best for us and when we disobey, we are harming ourselves.
This leads to the clearest reason behind troubles on earth—free will. In order for humans to be fully free, they have the choice to disobey God. And this disobedience, as seen above, is self- and others-destructive. So while God is all loving, wanting what’s best for us, and all powerful, capable of preventing bad things, we are free entities with the ability to make independent choices. God does not force anyone into anything, and suffering is not his punishment for sin but its result. I’m not trying to say that people who encounter hard times deserve it because of some sin they committed. It is far too simple to reduce events in life to a matter of deserving. However, the world is not magically a safe place, and it is more loving for God to allow us to make our own choices than to control us even though it keeps us safe. On the contrary, many people end up suffering no matter how good of a life they lead.
One commonly-used biblical example of such suffering is Job. In his story, the biggest question was if he deserved his fate or not. If he was wicked, then he deserved everything he got. If he was not wicked, then that meant good people suffered regardless of merit. Job’s friends were unable to deal with this possibility so they insisted he was at fault. job himself, knowing his innocence, continually asked God the reason for his suffering. It is only at the end of the book that God responds, but he doesn’t quite give Job an answer. He instead asks a variety of rhetorical questions about the vastness of creation, implying that a human such as Job is simply not in a position to determine what justice is or how it should be implemented. From the trillions of stars in the galaxies to the microscopic organisms in the ocean, the world is too complex for us. Yet, Tim Mackie of The Bible Project points out, Job was right to question God, to wrestle with his struggles, and it was okay for him not to understand [1].
Despite it being the first question we want to ask when something goes wrong, “why?” does not help us in suffering. I listened to a lecture recently where the speaker pointed out that the better question, in the midst of trouble, is “Whom? To whom can I reach out? Who will help me? Whom can I help in return?” This way, the response to struggles is growth. Does it answer why something bad happened? No. but it ensures that good comes as a result, which is more important.
To conclude, suffering is a complex issue and does not always have clear answers. The world as a whole is incredibly complex, and we are too eager to oversimplify it. Yet God wants us to ask and to question and ultimately, to trust him because he is always looking out for our best. When I began this post saying joy is always possible through Christ, I did not mean Christians are always happy. Happiness depends on circumstances and, as previously mentioned, circumstances are not always ideal. Instead, the peace the comes from relying on God even though life is imperfect is how Christians are joyful.
Notes
[1] The Bible Project, Read Scriptures Series: Job, Tim Mackie (2015), Web.
Joy Through Christ 