7. Reaping

[Krissi]

These are good questions to which I cannot give good answers.

I don’t know why God doesn’t do miracles when we need them, or want them, but lets us suffer as we wonder if He’s going to help us … or not. Three generations were enslaved in Babylon, not just those of the first generation who were deeply sinful. Innocent children were born in Babylon … some died never knowing any other life. Why did God wait for so long? Why did He permit some people to suffer and die, and others to experience the joy of release if God was capable of doing such a miracle a few decades earlier?

The standard answer is that He had to wait until all those who had known their prior life Israel had died. But why? Wasn’t sincere repentance possible? An answer inserted in the questions Pastor Ralph asks is this: “patient obedience (was necessary) for “the success of our labors and our own spiritual maturity.” Okay, I can see this but couldn’t God speed up maturity so all could experience the joy of release? Some Christians do mature quickly, after all; others seem born saintly. Perhaps some would never mature and had to be eliminated?

We cannot shout for joy because we don’t know if we’re the ones who are born and die in captivity, or if we’re the ones who get to experience the joy of release … the restoration of fortunes. We simply don’t know. If we shout for joy, we’re shouting in hope and anticipation, not sure-footed faith. We’re hoping that the odds are in our favor, that we “win” the divine lottery of restoration.

From my wee perspective, we reach a point at which we succumb to the pain and evil of life, giving in because we have this gut-level sense that somehow this is part of His divine puzzle/plan; we assert that God is good in the spite of evidence to the contrary as we struggle to really mean it, to be sincere and truthful. I think that’s the crux of faith. Faith is believing in spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

God is not rational. He does not fit into our categories of “good” and “powerful.” And yet, we have these categories. So we must sense, perhaps by the agency of the Holy Spirit, what goodness really means and how He is good, though He makes us suffer so much.

 Here’s an anecdote.
“That day, I cried like never before,” says Pastor Zachariah, a Christian in Nigeria whose wife and children were killed in an attack from Fulani militants. “It was on that day I knew that death was truly painful. … When I saw her [my wife’s] body, I remembered the life I lived with her,” Pastor Zachariah says. “We went out preaching together in the northeastern region, we opened churches together. We did everything together; we walked hand in hand with each other, we did not have any problems. Honestly when this attack took place I felt as if God had forsaken me, because I said, ‘If God is in control, why would He allow these people to cause this kind of attack on us? Where is He that He will not take charge of the situation? He has the power to kill them but decides not to.’  …

The reason I give thanks is because God knows everything, He allowed them [my family] to go because it was their time, God decided to call them home,” Pastor Zachariah says. “For those who have found themselves in similar situations with that which we have experienced, my prayer is that we should rely on God because He is everything we live for. If we turn our attention away from God, we will see Him as someone who cannot help us, but if we believe He can do all things, then we will not be broken.”

To sum, I, personally, cannot shout for joy, but I am able, on occasion, to succumb to the mystery of suffering as His will. I can submit to violence/death not because I understand God or His character, but precisely because I don’t understand Him but still make space to hope; I hope that in spite of the evidence, in spite of what I see and feel, He is sovereign and loving. Both.