Truly God's hand is full of mystery, and his choices from our limited perspective can feel unfair. I will never pretend to know why some of us are called to walk through pain, loss, illness, and more that we don't see resolved on this side of eternity. I do know what God says about himself. We can look to who he is and what he is doing when we find ourselves needing a miracle.
Carrying physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, or mental impairment is taxing, to say the least. When a part of our lives feels broken, it's hard to focus really on much of anything else. Diagnoses that promise pain, suffering, and are potentially fatal can be soul-crushing. Walking with a loved one through these kinds of health can rattle us to the core. We can even begin to question God's goodness when we watch a loved one hurt or are facing a scary and painful future ourselves.
God invites us to cry out to him in our time of need. Jesus performed many healing miracles during his ministry; he even raised several people from the dead! We know he is able. Why, then, do some of us find ourselves continuing to struggle under the weight of sickness and brokenness while God miraculously relieves others of their pain instantly?
Truly God's hand is full of mystery, and his choices from our limited perspective can feel unfair. I will never pretend to know why some of us are called to walk through pain, loss, illness, and more that we don't see resolved on this side of eternity. I do know what God says about himself. We can look to who he is and what he is doing when we find ourselves needing a miracle.
1. Ask God to Help You Move Past the "Why" and Instead Look for the "What"
At my Community Bible Study class, a mom got up and told a story that is every parent's worst nightmare. She told of how her perfect baby became ill at six months old. They prayed for a miracle, and rather than God sparing his life, he was taken home to heaven at way too young of an age. The mom shared that God has helped her see her loss through a new lens in the five years since his passing. When we face grief, we immediately ask why—asking 'why' is written into our DNA. Every toddler goes through their relentless "why stage," where they ask why something is the case for basically everything they see or you talk about together.
We learn by asking why. God invites our why, but when the pain is so great on this side of heaven, there is really no reason that will remove or make sense of your current grief. For this mom that went through the unthinkable, God invited her to start asking what. She began to ask God to show her what he had for their family next as they processed their grief and moved forward with life. She asked what God was teaching them through their tragedy. She even moved to how God could use this loss for his glory.
This momma's heart for the Lord is truly beautiful, and only through the power of the Holy Spirit can we walk through such profound loss and come out the other side asking how we can better glorify God! Walking through suffering, loss, illness, and more and still praising God is a miracle! It may not be the miracle we wanted, but nonetheless, it takes power beyond us to release to the Lord our right to be angry and embrace his sovereign ability to make beautiful things out of the most broken of circumstances that we face in our lives.
2. God Allows Suffering
Just as God is the great healer, he also allows suffering. The night or suffering is normal. Even from the start of creation, God separated the day from the night. Allowing both to exist in our world. He allows us to experience both the light and be touched by darkness while in this life. I often wish this was not true, but it is what the Bible teaches. Suffering is something that every person experiences. As a Believer, Jesus calls us to see our trials through a different lens. He says to consider our trials pure joy as they create perseverance. They deepen our faith walk. (James 1:2-4)
He does promise that we don't walk these tough roads alone. He tells us that he listens when we cry for help (Psalm 22:24). While God doesn't always take our suffering away, he gives us strength and grace for the journey. Consider Hagar; she gave God the name "El Roi" or the "God who sees me," but after this astounding encounter, he sends her back to a painful situation. He sees her, comforts her, and then walks back to the place she had fled from. Her faith in persevering in a tough situation ensured that her son could grow up close to the father.
3. Our Faith Is Based on Relationship, Not Outcomes
What makes Christianity unique is that it is not a merit-based system. We have no way to earn heaven. Christianity is an invitation in to God's forever family. It takes the long view and is about knowing God more than anything else.
It's human nature to keep trying to gravitate toward the way of the Pharisees. They knew the law, followed the law, and only saw the law rather than the maker of the laws. It's just so much simpler that way. It is so nice and tidy to believe that good things will happen to us if we are good. It's a lot easier to sell than the verses telling us it rains on the just and the unjust. Churches can never promise that God will do something material for you if you offer God XYandZ.
God is a mysterious, autonomous, and all-knowing being that works so individually in all our lives. That's why it's possible for him to be good to the Iranian Christian who is called to die for his faith just as he is good to me, who has yet to ever experience that kind of persecution.
What he offers us all is a relationship.
That's the whole deal. Give your life to him and be in his family. When we give our lives to him, we are promised to have a Father God there at all the meals. You have one you can pray to whenever you're afraid, or life doesn't make sense. Sure, sometimes that means he responds with a miracle, but other times he is there in the desert season with you and allows us to go through the tough thing. The point is just that we have each other through it all. That's the whole story of God. He is the one who made us because, from the beginning, his desire has been to be with us. (John 3, Revelation 3:20, Ezekiel 36:26)
4. God Takes the Long View
Ultimately as people trapped in bodies bound by space in time, we tend to focus on the here and now more than anything else. One day my son started crying because the thought of eternity with God scared him. That was too long for his little brain to imagine, and it felt frightening. Sometimes it frightens me too.
Yet, eternity is where God resides. He sees the big picture and for some of us healing comes in eternity. This is so tough to accept, but there are many tragedies that justice has not been realized for Earth side. This is why the saints cry out in Revelation, asking God to finally act! They desire his justice to be carried out (Revelation 6:10). Our God is long-suffering and patient. He does not operate in haste, and while we can rest in the promise that there will be a day when suffering will end, we are asked to keep trusting and seeking him when his timing feels slow here on Earth. (Revelation 21:4, Romans 14:8, John 11:25-26)
Jesus speaks to this issue in the best possible way. He tells us in Matthew 5:3-12, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the Earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
