Why Do the Righteous Suffer?
God never promised us a rose garden, but He gave us the tools to avoid the thorns, and the healing balm to soothe the wounds when we couldn’t escape injury. Our responsibility is to recognize the brier patch before we find ourselves in the middle of it.
2020 is turning out to be the year that we all wish never happened. In the past six months, we’ve battled a nasty global virus and now we are being reminded and humiliated by our sins of racial injustice.
It’s not the first time God has hit us over the proverbial head and made us face our shortcomings, but it’s the first time it’s been this personal in our lifetime. If we don’t think our Creator is using this chaos to get our attention, then we need to spend a little more time reading the stories of old Israel.
God doesn’t change.
If you’re one of those who insists that God is all-loving and the Old Testament is passe, then I challenge you to pick up your Bible and read the prophetic and poetic tales of woe that speak directly to the challenges we face in our modern society.
While you’re reading, ask yourself why Israel was dragged off and enslaved for hundreds of years to foreign powers three times before Jesus arrived? This will lead you to the question why does God allow slavery and injustice and why do the righteous suffer and the evil prosper—a major theme in the book of Job.
God doesn’t change.
Our merciful and loving God is also just and righteous. It’s because He loves us He cannot tolerate evil. Any evil by anyone. Sometimes, the best way to combat evil is to allow more evil, as when the Assyrians attacked the Babylonians creating a bigger challenge for the Israelites praying for freedom from slavery.
An interesting thing often happens when we pray for a life of ease. Life gets worse. Then we wish we were back in the olden days when life was better. But we can’t go back. We can only go forward.
This is when God gets our attention. We’ve forgotten to be grateful, so He gives us tragedy to soften our hearts. We’ve turned prideful, so He allows tough times to humble us. We’ve turned hardened and angry, so He plants a mirror to show us how ugly we are and to help us repent. When sin is exposed and dealt with, He pours his healing balm over the nations to encourage all to turn to Him.
God wants us to know Him and trust Him. He’s got this thorny world in His hands and He knows the end from the beginning. And that should give us peace and comfort.
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 Corinthians 4:17 NIV
