More on why suffering and evil?

A few weeks ago I preached a sermon on "Why suffering and evil? Is God still good?" I've heard it has motivated lots of great conversations. I've also had some really good follow-up questions that I thought I'd take a few minutes to address in this format, especially since I know suffering and evil is such a big question for people.

Let's say that two years ago you lost your job that you loved. You loved that job and it was very hard to lose it. It happened unexpectedly and caused you no small amount of heartache and loss. Let's also say that you're a Jesus follower and so, even though it was with tears, you worked through this loss, and the financial setbacks, etc. In fact, you arrived at a place where you learned a lot of very valuable life lessons through this loss and you matured as a person and as a student of Jesus. So you ask yourself, "Is it not likely that God caused this suffering, to teach me these lessons?" That's a great question.

First, let me briefly acknowledge that losing a job - especially gainful employment that you love - is a real suffering. God wants people to be productively employed, using their gifts and skills to provide for themselves, for others, and to help make the world a better place. Labor is fundamental to what it means to be human - this labor only became "work" because of the Fall. Anyway ...

I could imagine how someone might understand their situation this way. I could imagine that it might even be right. But I'd offer another way of thinking about it. I'd wonder if maybe the loss of the job wasn't just the consequential outworking of a world corrupted from sin, where our economic systems aren't perfect and where not everyone gets a productive job that creatively employs them. I could even imagine how the loss of this job might be connected to the devices of evil intelligences (whether human, supra-personal, or both); I know this isn't very fashionable, but I stand by the fact it could be true. "The enemy," Jesus says, "comes to kill, steal, and destroy." This evil power doesn't want whats best for us, but rather wants to make us and our families falter. Taking away our productive labor and causing us to question God's good provision would certainly qualify for that. Anyway, regardless of how it comes about, you've lost your job. But you're really wanting to follow Jesus and trust him. So, as you work through the pain and disappointment, and give God your honest emotions and really try to find satisfaction in him, you begin to discern how you're now relying on him more, etc. There could be lots of lessons. You've learned these things because your heart was oriented towards being a student of Jesus - you were ready to learn and grow. This happened regardless of whether you found yourself in good circumstances or ill ones. And I think that's the key difference. You grew not because of the circumstance, but because of the orientation of your heart. God didn't cause this evil circumstance; rather, God worked in your heart to enable even this evil circumstance to turn out for your good.

Now, take the same event - someone loses their job. In this case, the person is not a Jesus follower, but rather a very selfish person who boasts because of their work success and spends all they make on toys for themselves. We might be prone to think, "Isn't God causing this suffering to punish this person for their sins?" Again, I can see how we might think this. Job's friends thought this surely must be what was going on with him. God, they thought, rewards the righteous and punishes the sinful, so if you're going through a hard time it must be because you've sinned. But Job's friends were wrong, guilty of being overly simplistic. Real life isn't that easy. It is true that God disciplines his children, training them so that they mature. Tough love, if you will. If this very selfish person were a Jesus follower, a child of Father God, then maybe that might explain things. But there's another possible explanation. Lots of times difficult circumstances come our way as natural consequences for our choices and actions. It could be that this person lost their job, not because God was out to get them, but as a consequence of their own selfish self-aggrandizement. They got themselves. And, actually, God is waiting in the wings, wanting to restore them to a job they can love, find fulfillment in, etc. That's the God of grace I know and love.

One of the things I find satisfying about this understanding is that it honors God and the ones he respects - namely, us, and the forces at work for good and evil in the world.