Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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When Bad Things Happen to Good People · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, Tim Wright here.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Filling in again for us for Terry Summers is John Douglas Burgess.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is it Douglas?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's whatever you want it to be.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: All righty.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: John Douglas Burgess,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: John D.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Burgess,
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: and he brings a lawyer's brain to our question and answer time as we are wrestling
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: with some of these really important topics together.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to look, we've got a couple of questions, but we'll see where they take us.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the first one is one that people ask all of the time.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And John has kind of listed these as some of the top reasons why people don't believe in Christianity.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So John, give us the first one.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this actually comes a couple of questions from friends of my daughter.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: She was hanging out with some friends and the topic was sort of,
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I would believe in Christianity,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: but...
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so here are the things that came after that from a couple of her friends.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the first one was...
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially, and I think I hear this question a lot, right?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially, I think it's distilled down to why do bad things happen to good people?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And doing the things that you do to be a Christian doesn't seem to impact that.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: Or you see just amazing people that we all look up to and they get sick or their
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: spouse gets sick or something like that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you just think, why would that happen?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: There doesn't seem to be justice there.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that's number one.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want the next one too?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: No, let's stick with that one for a while.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll see how we go.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, it is one of the questions that even the Bible tackles.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And we have a whole book called Book of Job in the Old Testament that deals with that issue.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why do bad things happen to good people?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And interestingly, first thing to say is,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't answer that question.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: At least not in the way that we want, with a logical explanation.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because what possible explanation could you possibly give to some of the tragedies
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: that people experience in life?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God could come and say, well, it happens because of this.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: All right, but what about?
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: God could say this.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, all right, what about?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can never...
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: get your brain around why a guy gets into his car,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: stone cold drunk and kills a family because he's drunk.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: How do you give any kind of explanation for that?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: How do you give an explanation for someone who has lived a healthy life?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: They don't drink, they don't smoke.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're on the Mediterranean diet.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: They exercise and they die of cancer.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: What possible explanation can you give for that?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: You can't.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible doesn't try to do that because the Bible isn't first and foremost an answer book.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible is a life book and it's a story about God entering into real life with
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: real people and how God meets us when bad stuff happens.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple of things to say, and then we'll kind of see where we are on this.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I was watching a detective show.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jay and I love British mysteries.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: This happened to be a Canadian mystery.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the chief inspector is a quasi-religious man who really struggles with his
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: faith in part because of what he sees all the time.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a horrific murder.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was of a younger person.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he says to his sergeant, how can God, a loving God, allow that to happen?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the sergeant says, how can a human being cause that to happen?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was really brilliant.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because people, more often than not, cause a lot of the heartache that we go through.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, nobody, no human being caused my wife to have cancer.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: No human being technically causes a tornado to go through and kill hundreds of families.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Those are sort of things that just happen in life.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the bad things that we see happening in life,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: why did God allow that drunk to get in the car?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why did that drunk get in the car?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we serve...
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol to people who are already drunk.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: there's all kinds of questions that we should be asking about how that shouldn't
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: happen again,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: rather than blaming God for that.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's natural for us to need to blame somebody.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's perfectly okay to blame God.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: part of me always says,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: if you're blaming God for something that happened,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: at least you still believe in God.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God can work with that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: So part of what happens in life is that human beings make decisions and they hurt other people.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not God's fault.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: We also know that we live in a world that is affected by climate and climate change and storms happen.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we do know,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: for example,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: that there are certain fault lines where earthquakes happen and yet people still
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: build houses there.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you are taking some, and I'm not blaming people here.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want people to hear that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if you build your house on a fault line and then an earthquake happens, it's to blame God for that.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you build your house right in the middle of Tornado Alley,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a possibility, right, that that could happen.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying don't do those things,
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: but I'm just saying we always are looking for reasons other than humanity itself to blame,
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: and it's easy to blame God.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Why didn't God stop that from happening?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I think is always interesting is why do bad things happen to good people?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we blame God for that, but nobody asked the question, why do good things happen to good people?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he doesn't get blamed enough for that probably.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And normally what we say, well, good things happen because I made good things happen.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I work hard.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I work hard or people did good things to me.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't have it both ways.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we want God to stop all the pain and suffering in the world,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: but we don't want God to control our lives.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be puppets.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: can we say,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tim,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: that part of being created in God's image is having the free will to make decisions?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: And the capacity.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And part of the false story is that we use this capacity to hurt.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: We use it in wrong ways.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so bad things happen not because God allows them to happen.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: or because God makes them happen.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Bad things happen because bad things happen.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a broken, fallen world, and that's not always real satisfying because we want answers.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: when I said the Bible doesn't give us an explanation for suffering,
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: what it does instead is it gives us a promise that God's grace will meet us in our sufferings.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the cross of Jesus is many things, but the one thing it is, is God entering into human suffering.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: God entering into that moment when it seems like God has abandoned you and Jesus said,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: my God,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: my God,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: why have you forsaken me?
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or another way of saying is, why do you allow bad things to happen to good people?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And God doesn't give an answer.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: God gives God's presence to us.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: and holds us through it and gives us grace and mercy and love that we may not always see.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Again, remember Jesus, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: He felt totally abandoned.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And yet a few moments later, he said, into your hands, I commit my spirit.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, he may or may not have felt the presence of God, but he knew the promise of God.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he's able to let go and knew whether he felt it or not that God was there to catch him.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the promise that we live with.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not that life will be easy.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not that life will be pain-free.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: We know life isn't like that.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: We know we make decisions that hurt each other.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the world is broken and certain things happen in the world.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Our bodies are not perfect.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: They get sick.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: horrific things happen when they shouldn't happen.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that you could say is dumb luck.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's the genes, it's decisions we make.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is not God.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And now that's not necessarily easy to hear when you're going through it,
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: but the cross stands as the reminder that God gets it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Hebrews says he was made to suffer like we suffer so that he would understand us.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the radical stories of the incarnation,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus becoming a human being,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: God becoming a human being,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: is that God entered into everything.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: God became flesh.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this God with skin on could cry,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: could hurt,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: could celebrate,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: could laugh,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: could bleed,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: and could die.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: All the things that we go through, that's the human experience.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And God entered into all of it so that we don't have to go through it alone without hope.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask one hard follow-up question,
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: notwithstanding that everything you just said,
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: particularly in the last couple of minutes,
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: is just sort of the bookend.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to open up the book a little bit.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: because I think the really hard part of this is,
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: and I can remember sitting in the congregation,
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: and depending on when folks listen to this,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's really close to the anniversary of 9-11.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I can remember sitting in the congregation when 9-11 happened,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: and we had some special meetings at the church,
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: and you were kind of helping us kind of walk through this and process it.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: But the question really was, and I understand free will, and I understand that
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: If there's not potential bad consequences to people's decisions, that's not free will.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: So there has to be both sides of the coin there.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that when you're in the midst of it and when it's your family that's in
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: the towers or it's your family on the other end of the drunk driver or your family,
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: what you really are praying for is I got it.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: But how come, God, you couldn't step in on this one?
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: This is the one where,
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: yes,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: human decisions got us to this point,
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: but an all-knowing,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: all-powerful,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: all-loving,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: graceful God,
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: this is the one where I need you to step in and do something.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is a terrible answer, and then I'll try to make it a good one.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's just how life is.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's just the way the world works.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: People filled with hatred get in airplanes and take them over and crash them into buildings.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: People filled with hatred put Jews in ghettos and then gas them to death.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: People with hatred and anger go out and they pick up a gun and they shoot innocent students.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in some cases, let's just take
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nazi Germany, for example.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: People kept saying, where's God in all this?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger question was, where were sane human beings in all of this?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: With school shootings, at some point you got to ask the question, where's the sanity?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: you know that there are going to be bad actors,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: there are going to be people who are mentally ill and they get through the cracks.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: But to blame God for
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Hitler's actions with hardly anyone stepping up to stop him.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, a father putting an AK-40 in the hands of his son who goes out and shoots people.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's... Why are we as society allowing those things to happen?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the questions that we should be asking.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of what God does is...
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: God tries to get through to us in those moments and say, why are you doing this to each other?
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you continue to allow this to happen?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you continue to allow racism and anti-Semitism and injustice?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you continue to do that?
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've created you with this wonderful capacity to put people on the moon for
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: heaven's sake,
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: and you can't figure out how to feed humanity?
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: so I think there's a lot of stuff going on where it's really easy to blame God.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's a lot easier to blame God than to blame ourselves or to look inward.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But then there are those times,
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: when,
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: when a health thing happens to someone who's far too young,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: right.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: A baby born with a defect, all of these things that are,
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: We wish that God would intervene, but God never said that's how he works in the world.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: God works in the world by being there with us,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: getting us through,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: and then bringing people into our lives who can be God for us and grace to us.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you can ask the question, well, why is it that so many people go to bed at night?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Why does God allow people to go to bed at night without food?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And God's saying to us, why are you letting that happen?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have the capacity to create enough calories every day for every single person
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: on this planet to eat a healthy diet.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Why is it that you're allowing people to go to bed hungry?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a matter of when you're in intense grief and loss, it's a natural question to ask.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: The psalmist asks it, and God's big enough to take it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what God wanted to do in the cross of Jesus and in the person and resurrection of Jesus,
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: is say, I've not abandoned you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the biggie.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have not abandoned you.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it feels like it.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it feels like it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have not abandoned you.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the cross, the cross stands as the tangible, visible reminder that I have not abandoned you.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And where is it that you'll experience God?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of times we think we're going to experience God by just sitting in our homes
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: and God's going to come with some sort of mystical feeling.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It happens sometimes.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: But where God shows up, especially when we don't feel God, is in being with community of other believers.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's being in the place where we hear week after week the story of Jesus and that
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: God is with us when we're going through tough stuff.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: it's through receiving communion every week.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh,
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: that,
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: that gift of grace that comes to us so that even if we don't feel Jesus in the moment,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: when I eat that little wafer and drink that grape juice or wine,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I taste it.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I, I drink it.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I ingest it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a, it's a tangible, the promise is made tangible.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, um, uh,
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is you can't...
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's really difficult to experience the presence of God in the midst of suffering
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: and pain if you just say,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: well,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: why does God allow that?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then never pay attention to God again.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to participate in God's spaces and
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: and attend to some sort of spiritual growth for that reality to just sort of grow
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: in our souls and our hearts and our minds.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've been a pastor long enough to see these long-lived Christian people who have
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: sort of learned through the battle scars of life
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: that life sometimes hurts, but God doesn't abandon us.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes those are hard lessons to learn.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: People have lost children,
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: people went through divorce,
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: but this is all,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: and it sounds crass,
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: this is a hard question to do,
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: but what holds us is the promise of God that you are not abandoned,
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: you are loved,
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: you won't go through this alone.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it is amazing that some people go through almost all their lives.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: you think you always think about that guy who never took care of himself,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: smoked a pack a day at least,
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: six pack of beer for lunch,
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: dinner,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: and then before bed can hardly move.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's 99 years old.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Happy as a clam, he says, what's your secret to life?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just abuse my body, right?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then you got that other person,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: right,
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: the runner and so on,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: we talked about,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: dies at the age of 60 from a heart attack.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, plus he spent all that time running, and that wasn't a lot of fun.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, yes, yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a runner, you'd disagree with that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So life isn't fair, but God never promised it would be.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: I,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: and I think that I don't want to lose your point in the midst of this,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: this is a really deep question and it deserves a little bit more struggle than just
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: coming to resolution based upon what you overhear at a coffee shop.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like it deserves, right.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: It deserves work and attention and reading and,
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: and,
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: and you've always been a proponent of,
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: God is big enough for you to be angry with him.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, and,
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: and ask where he was and demand more and try to,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: but I think there's really something,
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: is there not,
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: value in the fight here,
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: in the struggle?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think a fair question is, God, where were you?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: But an openness to say, where are you now?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you now?
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: To move kind of from blame, which is a normal part of grief, and don't skip over that part,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's normal.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Anger, all of that, that's normal.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, but God, where are you now?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And Robert Shuler used to say, we need to move from why to what now?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: If you get stuck in the why, you never move on.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: You need to ask why.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's healthy to ask why, because that's a grief question.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the real question is, well, now what?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And God, what do you want to say to me now?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just that assurance, the promise of the cross that God will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not always easy to see when you're in the midst of it.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you're right, this is a question that we'll all struggle with.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Even the most faithful of Christians,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: who've been Christians a long,
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: long time,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: have been through a lot,
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: something's going to knock them off their game.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: And, okay, God, you know, why?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: And let's face it,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of people have walked away from their faith because something really bad
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: happened in their lives,
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: and they blame God for it,
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: or God did not intervene.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so here's another way I ask the question.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's assume God doesn't exist.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: There is no God.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how do you explain bad things happening?
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I have to say, apparently that's just life.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it is.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you take God out of the equation and say, God doesn't exist or I don't want God in my life.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're still going to happen.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now,
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: partly because our misunderstandings of God is God is in control,
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: which isn't necessarily what Scripture says.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or that God is sort of this magic genie who shows up when we need God and then
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: disappears when we don't need God.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm being crass here, but there are some people like that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not meaning to be crass or mean, but...
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: we have these perceptions of God that aren't really rooted in the story of Jesus.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the story of Jesus is so very, very important.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus healed people.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus raised people to life because he wanted to give us a taste of what the God
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: life can be like and will be like.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, he didn't heal.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: The world continued to hurt.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It continued to break.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he even predicted that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed and there would be pain and there would be hurt.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is how life works.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Good stuff happens to good people.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Good stuff happens to bad people.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Bad stuff happens to good people.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Bad stuff happens to bad people.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's just life.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some people get it worse than others.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are blessed more than others.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's life, and it's hard to be crass about it and say it's just life.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, where does God enter into that?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the cross gives us part of the answer.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: so I've only really taken you down one rabbit hole,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: and I think I'm contractually obligated to do at least three per podcast.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: So could you just double click on the God is in control thing?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: And what are we tending to miss there?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what are we trying to do when we say that?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think all of us want to believe that there's meaning in the universe,
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: that there's meaning for our existence and so on.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if God isn't in control, then what's the meaning?
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't think the meaning has to do with God being in control.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think the meaning comes from living out the values of God, the life of God.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: That meaning comes,
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: as we talked about in our last podcast,
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: with living a life of grace and compassion and mercy.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's where God is at work, by the way.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: if you want to know what God is doing for hunger,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: well then look at all these organizations where people are feeding the hungry.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's God at work.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Look at doctors and nurses.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's God at work bringing healing to people.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, God is at work all over the place through a lot of people, Christian and non-Christian alike.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's where God is at work, changing the world, helping the world.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: If we say that God is in control of,
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: What we really mean is I want God to control the bad stuff and keep that from happening in my life.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do want that.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be great.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: It would be great.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we think, um, but it's not really life.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if God is in control and so that nothing bad happens to us,
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: just logically think through what that means for our lives and what we can and
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: cannot do.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be getting on an airplane.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't probably be getting in a car.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Should probably never eat a burger.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: unless we think God's a magic genie who will come along and bless every decision
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: that we make,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: good or bad.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: God...
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: God created the world.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: God is invested in the world.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: God loves the world.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: God entered the world in the person of Jesus.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: But that doesn't mean that God controls every single interaction all over the world.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I see.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: But don't you also think that when we say God is in control,
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: at least in my mind,
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that means there will be ultimate resolution here.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the loving God of grace that I love and worship is in charge of that, ultimately.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just think God is in control is an unfortunate way to talk about things.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we say God is in control, then it's God's fault that we had a hurricane.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's fault that we had 9-11.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's fault that my wife has cancer.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because God's in control.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_00: He let it happen.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: God isn't letting these things happen.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: This is the way that the world works.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: These things just happen.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there's a rhyme or reason for it.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes there's not.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like the cancer my wife has.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: She has cancer in her family.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody has this kind of cancer.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where did that come from?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: There's no rhyme or reason to it.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's in the genes somewhere, in her genetic DNA makeup somewhere.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's how life works.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth of the matter is,
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: we can pray as much as we want,
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: but every single one of us is going to die.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us is going to experience the death of people that we love.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: To say God is in control really puts us in a bad situation because then we become
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: disappointed with God or we expect things of God that God never promised.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: What God promises is his presence and his grace with us in the midst of life to give life meaning.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the radical message of the gospel is God is most present in suffering.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: The usual message about God is you want to see what God is like?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, look at the sunset.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look at the sunrise.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look at power.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the cross says you want to see where God is.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Look at weakness.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's where God is.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: God is on that cross in the person of Jesus suffering with you.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: But as you say, we'll have the final word and we'll bring reconciliation and resolution.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: We'll have the final word somehow in some way.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And won't just have the final word, has the word now.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that word is grace and love and compassion.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: And God will not abandon you.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm going to give you the final word in this podcast.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: But I just want to say for those people listening who are going through something
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: right now and wondering where God is.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: just a reminder that that is not a walk that you should do on your own.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: That is a walk that you should do with people around you, with clergy that can speak into your life.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that's part of God's design, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: That we would be in this together.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: So let us be in this together.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's okay when we are hit with something that just rocks our world to say, okay, God,
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you let that happen?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a natural human need in the midst of shock and grief to find something to
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: hang on to,
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: to try to make sense of the senselessness.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: But don't stay there because you're never going to get the answer you want because there is no answer.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is found in God's grace walking you through that tragic event and
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: Being deeper than your grief.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: His love being deeper than your grief.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And holding you when you feel like you can't hold on any longer.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking grace to you through every moment of every painful step that you have
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: to take so that you don't have to go through it alone.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And knowing that Jesus went through that exact same experience on the cross and
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: finally got through to the resurrection.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: The resurrection is on the other side.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: You may not see it.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: You may not even want it for a while, but it's okay to ask why, but your answer won't come there.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Your answer will come in, all right, God, where are you now?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to find he's there right there with you now.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's there in the counselor walking you through, that friend is bringing food over.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's there in the neighbor who sends over a little note to say,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: hey,
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking about you and praying for you.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's where God is.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: bringing grace and healing to life that sometimes is very difficult.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes maybe he's just there in the friend that is just listening and just
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: letting you pour it out.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's where God shows up, is in people.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a tough one.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know we'll come back to it, John, because it's just a hard one.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can't hang your hat on it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it would be really easy.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: But in the end, you know, if someone says, why did God allow that to happen?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: What could a person possibly say to that?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because he loves you?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that doesn't make sense.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or, well, he wanted your son in heaven more than he wanted you to have your son.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that makes no sense.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just because he wanted to show you his glory?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because he wanted to punish you for some sin?
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: no, it's just, why does, why does life throw us curve balls?
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And what does God say when life throws a curve ball to us?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we, we've been doing this preaching series.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the questions that we looked at is,
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: um,
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: God doesn't give us more than we can handle,
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: which isn't in the Bible at all.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is that God, everything that happens in God causes, um,
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: the real what the bible says is when life gives us more than we can handle god's
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: there that's what the bible says when life gives us more than we can handle god's
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: there and again we we are grateful for all the good things that happen uh and we we
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: don't often thank god for them but when we're hurting it's god's big enough
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think God is delighted when we,
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: even if we're asking that question,
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: why'd you allow this to happen?
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think God's just glad we turned to God.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then that gives God entree into our lives to begin to say something much deeper and profound.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: I will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: All right, John.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for an easy question this week.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for filling in for all your questions.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: And thanks, everyone, for listening.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Please share with your friends.