Suffering is an awful and powerful experience to witness. When our beloved spouse, parent or “not my child, please!” is in physical agony, our chest aches with unspeakable pain. There are no adequate words to describe the impact on us by their suffering and subsequent death. It is in times like this that our faith in a loving , present God can be sorely challenged as doubt overtakes Believers.
Such doubt is more common than most of us would expect or admit to others! Indeed, even “good” Christians doubt, leaving us groping in the dark with our confusion and questions. Feeling abandoned, even disappointed in God – “How unfair, how rotten,” especially when it is our child that dies – our spirit screams “Why?”
When we confide our confusion and crushed spirit to fellow Christians, their too frequent response is well-meaning comments like, “We must not question God’s Will” or (my personal favorite), “God doesn’t give us more than we can bear.” John Claypool [Tracks of a Fellow Struggler], who lost his daughter, calls this the road of unquestioning resignation [pg. 54]. Too often this road leave Believers feeling unheard, even judged at a time they are most vulnerable. It is at this juncture that devastated Believers can turn away from Christians, or even worse, leave their faith totally behind in the face of demands for unquestioning resignation.
Such a silent surrender has never felt natural to me. As a child, I asked “Why?” a lot about our family faith and was labeled rebellious as a teen. As a grief specialist, clients’ feelings of spiritual agony – especially parental loss captured in their words ‘I feel abandoned by God in my hour of need’ – made questioning God natural to me!
In one’s hour of need, it did not seem to me disrespectful or blasphemy to doubt God’s Promise to never leave you or forsake you. Instead it seems rational, quite human. But I too, in encounters long ago, have been shamed into silence with such thoughts and words. Instead of similarly shaming clients, I began searching for greater understanding of what faith was about when ‘bad things happen to good people’ leaving us confused.
Imagine how my spirit soared when John Claypool stated [pg.58] that to ask God ‘Why?,’ to “pour out our souls to Him is not rebellious, but faith,” it is honoring God by continuing to ask and seek and knock [pg. 58; Math. 6:33]! Claypool reminds readers that Job, in the Old Testament, who lost everyone and everything – his wife and children, his health, cattle and property, – strongly questioned God in “the midst of his agony” and despair [pg 56].
Similarly in Gethsemane, Christ agonized, asking God to “let this cup pass from me” [Math.26:39]. Later from the cross, Christ cried out, “My God, My God, Why? Why have you forsaken me?” [Math 27:46]. With Christ feeling abandoned – and He knew His life purpose! – how much more are our feelings of being forsaken and abandonment justified!
Clearly just these two instances alone should make it clear that questioning God’s decisions is an intragal part of being human, being His children. Having a God-given mind that thinks and reasons is a part of our nature and the Free Will endowed to us by God! We have “a similar relationship between parents and children,” and…“It’s the kind of relationship with God we are suppose to have,” Claypool notes [pg. 55-56].
For a much more comprehensive understanding of the role questioning plays in your spiritual journey than presented here, I encourage reading John Claypool’s book, Tracks of a Fellow Struggler [Chapter Three].
Claypool summarizes his reject of unquestioning, silent resignation to loss as follows: “…it is one of those medicines that cures at the expense of killing the organism it is suppose to heal” [pg 56]. Amen!
Subsequent blogs continue to address how our faith can be sustained in the face of suffering and loss. Please visit: #3 Spiritual Challenges: When Feelings Betray Us, and other faith based articles.