God's Credibility in Chaos

“I know that you can do anything. No one can keep you from doing what you plan to do.” Job 42:2

I suppose this is exactly the place where most followers of Jesus want to arrive. In fact, we give mental assent to the truth Job expresses: “Because God is God, I know that He can do anything. And, because He can do anything, nothing can stop His plans from going forward.” It all sounds so simple, so logical, so reasonable.

But when I step out of my 12 x 12 office where worship music is playing through my stereo with my Bible open on my desk into the first day of cold February, reality can hit me in the face. Our daughter just called to say that her four year degree is now going to take five years because of various requirements in her field of study. She was frustrated. She is ending her second year and assumed she was nearly halfway done, halfway toward her career goal. She is greatly disappointed, and I don’t blame her.

It is a small thing, but even in those sorts of moments we can ask, “Ok, so what’s up? God knew I wanted to get on with my career. So why another year?” We understand that an extra year or schooling doesn’t come close to Job’s suffering, or even the trials of a neighborhood acquaintance. But we either want the world to act as if God knows what we need and responds accordingly; or, that when it doesn’t, God gives us the wherewithal to roll with the punches and say, honestly, “No problem, God knows what He is doing.”

One mantra among Christians goes something like this, “You have to believe with your heart, not just your mind,” or “You need heart knowledge, not just head knowledge.” But the thing with aphorism is, the more you repeat them the less power they have. We throw away our nice proverb and walk away like we just solved the sufferer’s problem. I believe those who throw truisms about like that truly haven’t experienced the power behind them.

The way we get to “heart knowledge”, especially when it concerns suffering and God’s goodness, is usually through troubles, trials and sorrow. We do not come out of life with a robust trust in God when everything we put our hand to succeeds. (There are the worthy exceptions, of course, as there are to any rule of life.) But most of us learn that God truly can do anything when we come out of life situations that threaten to grind our very trust to dirt. It is during those times, when the world is chaotic and we doubt God’s credibility, that we may learn the truth of Job’s statement.

Part of our problem is the myopic view we take of life. When finances fail, relationships flounder or our health threatens to squash our resolve we lose the panoramic view of the world and experience only the effects it is having on our own life. That is reasonable. A person in pain has a difficult time thinking of much else.

But, if we can back up a bit and view the larger purposes of God, we may find we are fitting into a piece of God’s plan we had not considered before. I wouldn’t be writing about Job and his example of suffering if he hadn’t suffered in the first place. I do realize that is a bit simplistic, but I hope it illustrates the interconnected way of life. I have suffered agonizing headaches every day, all day for nearly four and a half years now. I have cried, begged, nearly walked away from full time ministry because of days I can barely function. God has heard the worst from me.

I cannot allow myself to think of bearing this another 20 years or more until I die. But, if my diagnosis holds true, and there is found no cure or God does not sovereignly heal me, that is what I face. At the same time, I have seen Him, in momentary flashes as brief as lightning, more clearly than at any other time of life.

I wish I could write this after I was healed. How easy it would be to say, “Those four and a half years taught me so much. I learned to trust God. I learned how to empathize with those in chronic pain.” But I am in the middle of a tunnel that, well, does not feel like a tunnel. A tunnel has opening on either end. You enter it, you travel, perhaps even many miles, but eventually a tiny light appears ahead and you are encouraged as you exit once more into the light. No, for now I am in a cave, a one-way cave. I have entered a tunnel without an apparent exit.

How, indeed, when there is no light on the horizon, do I say, “I know you can do anything.”? Can I find a way, even in the midst of constant pain, to declare that truth? A couple of years ago someone asked if I was still “having those headaches”. I replied that I was. She said, “I thought God answered prayer.” Wow…shot to the gut. It didn’t matter how she meant it, it only echoed some of my own thoughts along the way.

This physical life is only for a time, if we are eternal beings. Paul talks about our “light affliction” compared to the “weight of glory” we will experience in Christ. Paul went through plenty of “light affliction”; beatings, imprisoned, shipwrecks, near death, etc. How was he able to say, with Job, that God can do anything? Maybe it has to do with the second line of Job’s statement, “No one can keep you from doing what you plan to do.”

God’s plan is state this way in the book of Ephesians: “So he decided long ago to adopt us as his children. He did it because of what Jesus Christ has done. It pleased God to do it.” (Ephesians 1:5) Can God heal me, if it pleases Him? I have no doubt. Does God plan something higher for me than less pain? Yes He does. He decided, “predestined” some translations say, that we would be His adopted children through faith in Jesus.

That plan will never be thwarted. Let headaches rage, let finances be thin, my own doubts even crack like wet firewood, He will accomplish His plan! Job, at the end of defending himself to lousy friends who were even worse theologians, and hearing God speak for Himself, finally could say that he “knew God”. Things were different now, because of his suffering.

In some way we don’t always understand, suffering brings us closer to the heart of God than anything else can do. We are shoved into a corner, and we must either give up or trust. There has come an end of our own efforts. We can’t think our way out. Our charismatic personality is of no avail. Our brawn cannot break us out of the prison, nor can our personal contacts do a thing to ease the pain when cornered by God. It is trust Him or fail. It is all Him, or it is nothing. He is everything that moment, or else the universe is chaos.

I hope, like Job, that anyone who is reading this, and enduring suffering, will not give up. Job got angry, he expressed terrible doubt, maintained he did not deserve his suffering at all, but he never gave up on God’s goodness. His three friends thought they could know the unknowable and were shown to be spiritual dunces. Job admitted to knowing little except that he had done nothing to deserve the suffering he endured, and was shown to be a man who knew God deeply.