Any close friend can sit beside you and comfort you and empathize with you. I could barely see the white stripe on the edge of the road. ", I don't have God's mind; I don't share his perspective. Scripture: John 16:33. He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. “Why did God allow this to happen?” This is often the question that runs through the minds of family and friends when tragedy occurs. ", It's like the story that British church leader Galvin Reid tells about meeting a young man who had fallen down a flight of stairs as a baby and shattered his back. Each day brings new tragedy. And the boy replied: "Well, God has all eternity to make it up to me. Here is the classic statement of the problem. We can't understand everything from our finite perspective. Lee Strobel sums up my thoughts in this post from the Bible Gateway Blog. I already “knew all the answers” in my head, but they didn’t comfort me as my heart was broken in two. The top 7 stories of the day, curated just for you! A small child is diagnosed with leukemia and undergoes extensive medical treatment only to die in his mother’s arms. One of the most difficult aspects of following God is when we see something bad happen to people that we love. The latter overcomes the former. Get weekly updates from the editors of CT Pastors: Full report from outside investigation to be released in January. The great “I AM” (God) is always in control. Tragedies cause many people to question God’s goodness. It was frightening! Christianity Today strengthens the church by richly communicating the breadth of the true, good, and beautiful gospel. Your marriage is idyllic, your health is fabulous, and you have a six-month vacation in Tahiti. Several years ago, I commissioned a national survey and asked people what question they'd ask if they could only ask God one thing. Suffering doesn't have the last word anymore. And notice that the verse doesn't say we all will see immediately or even in this life how God has caused good to emerge from a bad circumstance. Even though we can't understand everything about it, I believe we can understand some things. My wife had to give birth. Then out of the blue, our son died in the womb. Maybe you're suffering from a physical ailment or heartache at this very moment. If their argument is successful, all it does is “prove” that God is either not all-powerful or not all-good. I couldn't stop because I was afraid someone might come along and rear-end us. Some of us are evil. There's illness, abuse, broken relationships, betrayal, sorrow, injuries, disappointment, heartache, crime and death. But we still wonder why bad things happen—although we know God is still in control, even if evil sometimes seems to be winning. All of us at some point in our lives have asked this question and wrestled with it? It's already being called the worst mass shooting in American history: 70 people shot by a gunman, 12 of them killed, while they were watching the midnight showing of a new movie. Alexander & the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, RZIM Confirms Ravi Zacharias’s Sexual Misconduct, When A Word Is Worth A Thousand Complaints (and When It Isn’t), Home delivery of CT magazine and CT Pastors special issues, Over 120 years of magazine archives plus full access to all of CT’s online archives. There was 9/11 and now the Syrian slaughters, and on and on. An earthquake registering 9.0 on the Richter scale set off tidal waves that hit 12 countries including India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, where the death toll from that country alone is at least 80,000, or more than three times the population of Aberdeen. Believe there are good reasons as to why God allows heartbreak and chaos and confusion because those... 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