Joel Miller writes about the natural flow of suffering in our lives.
Visit rural Uganda and tell me with straight face that God wants us to experience a life of ease and wealth, that he’s concerned about what kind of car we drive. It’s offensive to contemplate. More offensive to contemplate: say it in the face of the martyrs’ families in Nigeria who don’t even pray that their persecutors would stop, only that they would be able stand when their time comes. We’re not even worthy to suffer for Christ like that.
Joel is the author of The Revolutionary Paul Revere
I enjoyed preaching on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk last week. Habakkuk opens the book asking why God doesn’t immediately deal with evil people in his midst. God answers that he has a plan beyond Habakkuk’s imagination. He is raising up the Chaldeans to come and wipe out all the evil people in his land. Habakkuk then realizes that if God is going to wipe out all the evil in the land, not merely those he wants to point a finger at, then he too will suffer devastation. By the end of the book, he no longer is asking “How Long, O Lord?” but rather makes two statements, “I will wait quietly” (for God’s timing) and “I will rejoice in the Lord.” (Hab. 3:16 and 3:18)
I find many people who see personal comfort and pleasure as the highest values in the universe. Anything that interrupts that must be evil of the highest order. Then they encounter God who has much more important things in mind than personal comfort and pleasure. Then they must either humble themselves or arrogantly declare, “I can’t believe in a god who would allow xyz to happen.”
This reminds me of Augustine writing in Confessions, Book X, Chapter XXIII,