Moving Toward a Good God Who Loves You

12 Apr Moving Toward a Good God Who Loves You

In this blog series, I’m building the case for the fact that, no matter what our dissonance might be with God, the answer is moving toward Him, not away from Him.

Do we doubt that He exists? You must move toward Him for assurance. If you move away from Him, as we saw in the earlier set of blog posts in this series that looked at the 5 miracles modern science asks us to give them, you enter a land of conjecture, fantasy and self-deception. “What is” cannot be explained without God. Science has lost that battle. For the unprejudiced, atheism is dead (see Eric Metaxas’ book, Is Atheism Dead?).

Do we doubt that He is good? We must move toward Him for the answer, because – again – otherwise we move away from Him into never-never land, in which we cannot explain reality. In the blog posts of the last two weeks, we have admitted that we don’t grasp why God allowed pain, evil and suffering to invade His creation, but we looked at reasons to, nevertheless, believe that He is good, in spite of the pain.

This week, we look at whether or not God loves us:

• Wrestling with the cosmic problem of pain, evil and suffering addresses the question of whether or not God is good.
• Wrestling with the personal problem of pain in my life addresses the question of whether or not this good God loves me.

The deepest longing of all of life is the desire to be loved.

Benjamin Disraeli once said, “We are created for love. It is the principle of existence and its only end.”

Alexander McLaren once wrote, “If we lived under the constant benediction of the deepest truth of the universe – God is love – our peace would be full.”

It’s such a deep truth that it is difficult to grasp. But if we were utterly assured that God loves us… in spite of the pain in our personal lives… it would give us peace, in spite of our pain.

Just as a dentist inflicts necessary pain in order to do good, just as a medical doctor inflicts necessary pain in order to do good, so God inflicts necessary pain in order to do good. Why is it that way? We don’t know. But we have already looked at the reasons why we believe God is good in spit of the pain. So, when we are in the midst of personal pain, just as with a dentist, just as with a doctor, so with God – we must focus on the good being done, not the pain.

In the midst of all pain, we must move toward God. There is no help or hope in moving away from Him. So, let’s look at some of the most powerful benefits of trials. We must focus on them instead of the pain.

Trials bring us hidden blessings

Scripture makes it clear that God does love us… in spite of the fact that we have trials in our lives.

Trials are the avenue through which God brings us the blessings in life that we long for.

The Bible tells us that through trials, we can:

• Become stronger and more spiritually mature (James 1:2-4)
• Become more capable of ministering to others (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)
• Increase our eternal reward (Romans 8:18)
• Deepen our relationship with Him (Philippians 3:10)

Just as becoming mature and complete in any area – athletics, music, academics, vocational skills, – requires ongoing struggle, so there are many good and wonderful spiritual things that can only come about through struggle and trial and pain.

The greatest gift of trials is God Himself

Philippians 3:10, above, refers to the “fellowship of His suffering.” There is fellowship in suffering. Marines are perhaps the most loyal and “connected” of the military branches because it is so hard to be a marine. There is the phrase, “Semper Fi,” always faithful, that marks marines. “Once a marine, always a marine,” the saying goes.

War veterans have annual reunions to maintain fellowship with those they fought and suffered with. Those who suffered in 9-11 have remembrance events to keep alive the fellowship of their suffering.

So it is spiritually. When we suffer as Christians, we gain a level of fellowship with Jesus (who suffered so terribly for us) that we don’t have without suffering. And… the fellowship itself becomes the reward.

When I called my (now) wife, Margie, in high school and asked her to go to the prom with me, I was delirious with joy when she agreed.

On the fateful day, I washed and waxed my car to a blinding shine, put on my finest clothes, and went to pick her up. When she met me at the door in her dazzling white dress, smiling and perfectly made up… at that moment, I didn’t wish for another thing.

I did not wish I had made better grades that year. I did not wish I had scored more points in the last basketball game. I did not wish I had more money. I did not wish for another thing. I was completely happy in the moment with her… in her presence. I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

And so it will be with God – yet infinitely more so – that we will be filled up and completely happy and satisfied in His presence. The fact that He did not, from a temporal perspective, take better care of us on earth will become a non-issue.

As Timothy Keller has written, “On the day of the Lord – the day that God makes everything right, the day that everything sad becomes untrue – on that day the same thing will happen to your own hurts and sadness. You will find that the worst thing that ever happened to you will in the end only enhance your eternal delight. On that day all of it will be turned inside out and you will know joy beyond the walls of the world. The joy of your glory will be that much greater for every scar you bear.”

Conclusion

Even though we may be able to see the ultimate benefit of suffering, this is not to suggest that our suffering will ever be easy. No suffering is easy, or it wouldn’t be suffering.

When I think of those who have suffered more than I have…

• Joni Erikson Tada who has been a quadriplegic since her youth, who has survived cancer, and who is now living in chronic pain…
• Corrie ten Boom who witnessed the death of her father and sister, and who suffered terribly in a German concentration camp for helping Jews escape Germany…
• Countless nameless individuals today living in communist or Islamic countries who endure unspeakable persecution because of their faith…

… I have to admit that sometimes the suffering can rise to seemingly almost unbearable levels.

C.S. Lewis wrote, “What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good?’ Have they never been to a dentist?” And, “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

Yet Joni, and Corrie, and countless other individuals – and even C. S. Lewis – give testimony to the goodness and grace of God, even in the midst of their trials… confirming that even in such extreme levels, trials can make us stronger, make us more capable of ministering to others, increase our eternal reward, and deepen our fellowship with God.

As we focus on this truth, we can move toward a good God, deepening our relationship with Him, assured that He loves us.

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