Katdish.net

I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There isn’t any wonder that I fall
Why do we suffer, crossing off the years
There must be a reason for it all

I’ve trusted in You, Jesus, to save me from my sin
Heaven is the place I call my home
But I keep on getting caught up in this world I’m living in
And Your voice it sometimes fades before I know

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, crying with my need
Depending on Your love to carry me
The love that shed His blood for all the world to see
This must be the reason for it all

Hurtin’ brings my heart to You, a fortress in the storm
When what I wrap my heart around is gone
I give my heart so easily to the ruler of this world
When the one who loves me most will give me all

In all the things that cause me pain You give me eyes to see
I do believe but help my unbelief
I’ve seen hard times and I’ve been told
There is a reason for it all

The following is a post from my friend and pastor Jeff Hogan’s blog Convergence from August 17, 2007:

Suffering.

I really don’t have to explain suffering, do I? As soon as I said that word you probably filled in the blanks with your own story of pain, custom fit just for your life. Pain doesn’t care how old we are, or how much money we make, or what kind of car we drive- it sinks its teeth into all of us.

It’s in the sound of the doctor’s voice, saying those words we never wanted to hear.

It’s watching as your Mom and Dad’s marriage falls apart.

It’s in the helplessness of seeing a child slipping away.

It’s hearing the words “I don’t love you anymore.”

These things stack up inside us, and they can make us skeptical to the 2000 year old words of Paul in Romans 8:18 when he says, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

That’s a pretty big statement. If it wasn’t in the Bible, it might sound like a bunch of hooey.

Actually, depending on what you’re going through right now, it might sound like a bunch of hooey anyway.

At any rate, it makes me think about something that happened a while back.
I eat breakfast every Wednesday with a couple of guys. We usually talk about a book that we’re all reading, but a couple of weeks ago, we just talked about Rose. This wasn’t too hard- Mark had 3 entire albums full of their latest pictures of her.

The photos were from a trip that Mark and his wife Kim had recently taken to Haiti, to spend some more time with their little girl. They knew they wouldn’t be able to take Rose home- but that wasn’t really the point.

Mark and Kim love Rose. She isn’t some abstract concept, like “the orphans of Haiti,” or a name on a support card. She is their daughter. She just doesn’t live with them yet.

Adopting a child from Haiti is a long, expensive process and you have to jump through a lot of hoops. Every day that Mark and Kim spend without Rose is painful. But they continue to hope, and that hope is based in a quiet, confident expectation that it WILL happen. Nothing that Mark and Kim endure today will compare with the day when the adoption is complete and they get to take Rose home.

Do you think that God is any different? Is it any wonder that Paul can say that nothing we endure today is worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us? The hope that he is saying we can have is that same confident expectation that Mark and Kim have about Rose’s adoption. It will happen.

“Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” -Romans 8:23-25

I think that dealing with suffering is infinitely harder when you question if you really matter, and if there’s anything to believe in; to hope for.

The Creator, God of the universe answers both of those questions. He tells us, “You can believe in Me. I didn’t have a beginning, I won’t have an end, and I don’t change. I will be solid for you to hang on to, and I will never leave you, or forsake you.”

But He’s also saying, “I believe in you!” “You matter to Me, and I want you as my daughter; as my son.”

If we accept that adoption, then we HAVE to accept the truth that God wants us!

Nothing we endure today will compare with the day when our adoption is complete.

And that’s not hooey.

In Him We Live,

Jeff

p.s.- Thanks Mark, for letting me tell your amazing story.

***

UPDATE: Two and a half years later, Rose is still in Haiti with her sister and two brothers waiting to be adopted by Mark and Kim.

And here’s the last update from Jeff:

Kim is in Haiti at the orphanage with the kids- they are all safe for the time being. Though he was still waiting for word directly from her today, the last update I’ve seen on Mark’s facebook is, “I heard through Vicki & Dave Warner (Kim’s boss) that Kim is doing well and is very, very, very happy to be with all the kids at Lashbrook Family Ministries – Haiti in Port de Paix.” The plan was for Kim to stay and help at the orphanage while Mark continued his fight stateside to secure humanitarian visa’s for all four children. Kim told him, “I don’t want to come home without our kids.”

This adoption process has been long journey and just because Kim is with the children now, it doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. Would you please continue to pray for this family and others who just want to bring their kids home to a loving family? I know they would greatly appreciate it.

An excerpt from The Reason for God by Timothy Keller

Evil and Suffering May be (If Anything) Evidence for God

“Horrendous, inexplicable suffering, though it cannot disprove God, is nonetheless a problem for the believer in the Bible. However, it is perhaps an even greater problem for nonbelievers. C. S. Lewis described how he had originally rejected the idea of God because of the cruelty of life. Then he came to realize that evil was even more problematic for his new atheism. In the end, he realized that suffering provided a better argument for God’s existence than one against it:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just” and “unjust”?…What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?…Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too–for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies…Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.

Lewis recognized that modern objections to God are based on a sense of fair play and justice. People, we believe, ought not to suffer, be excluded, die of hunger or oppression. But the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction and violence of the strong against the weak–these things are all perfectly natural. On what basis, then, does the atheist judge the natural world to be horribly wrong, unfair, and unjust? The nonbeliever in God doesn’t have a good basis for being outraged at injustice, which, as Lewis points out, was the reason for objecting to God in the first place. If you are sure that this natural world is unjust and filled with evil, you are assuming the reality of some extra-natural (or supernatural) standard by which to make your judgement. The philosopher Alvin Plantinga said it like this:

Could there really be any such thing as a horrifying wickedness [If there were no God and we just evolved]? I don’t see how. There can be such a thing only if there is a way that rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live…A [secular] way of looking at the world has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort…and thus no way to say there is such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness. Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (…and not just an illusion of some sort), then you have a powerful…argument [for the reality of God].

In short, the problem of tragedy, suffering, and injustice is a problem for everyone It is at least as big a problem for non belief in God as for belief. It is therefore a mistake, though an understandable one, to think that if you abandon belief in God it somehow makes the problem of evil easier to handle.”

Dr. Keller’s argument thus far may sound cold and irrelevant to the real life sufferer. Later in the chapter, he continues:

“…for every one story in which evil turns out for good there are one hundred in which there is no conceivable silver lining…”So what if suffering and evil doesn’t logically disprove God?” such a person might say. “I’m still angry. All this philosophizing does not get the Christian God ‘off the hook’ for the world’s evil and suffering!” In response the philosopher Peter Kreeft points out that the Christian God came to earth to deliberately put himself on the hook of human suffering. In Jesus Christ, God experienced the greatest depths of pain. Therefore, though Christianity does not provide the reason for each experience of pain, it provides deep resources for actually facing suffering with hope and courage rather than bitterness and despair.”