Hi Shelly,
A few years ago I had the privilege to preach on the same day my dad was being removed from life support. It had been a rough year. It was a wonderful and humbling opportunity to live my theology. I won't include the whole sermon I gave that day but here is the conclusion to it. It was titled, "Is God Safe?" I hope it answers some of your questions. I pick up after speaking about what it means to know God and how he reveals himself to us.
"I´ve saved the loudest of God´s lessons for last. I could have chosen so many verses but I chose
2 Corinthians 4:16 -
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary trouble are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
Call it trouble, suffering, calamity, affliction or bad things. We don´t like them. They rarely make sense to us but, they are precious and perfect lessons in our knowing the Glory of God.
I received a phone call from an elder in my church this weak. Pray for a 19 year old girl from Rockford named Elizabeth. After a long bout with cancer the doctors can do no more. They´ve given her 2 weeks to live. Nineteen!? My best friend died the day after Christmas and left a wife and two young children. My daughter Ely had open heart surgery twice. A year ago my infant grand-daughter was killed in a car crash. These and other afflictions changed our life and similar things have changed yours.
I can´t figure out why these things happened because these afflictions are connected to a million other events in this world that I don´t know the first thing about. But God understands perfectly, and they are part of his plan. Will I question perfection?
We will suffer as a result of a million different forces is this world that we don´t understand. I don´t know all the mechanics of this world, But I know God and he controls every force.
The question is, will I despise the method that he has chosen in His infinite wisdom to teach me his immeasurable worth?
I can play the "What if?" game? What if things would have been different, could we avoid the suffering? But I would really be asking, "What if there had been a more perfect plan than God´s?"
I won´t play that game.
Anyone who thinks that suffering is not fair, doesn´t understand the utter hideousness of sin and the perfection and holiness of God. They don´t understand that we have all chosen death in our father Adam, but God will transform his sheep into the righteous image of Christ.
Do we deserve to suffer?
Yes, yes, a million times yes.
Is God just in afflicting? Yes, God is the definer of justice.
And in the process of suffering I know Him more and in knowing him I am assured that I am His sheep. I have his divine life living inside me. I conclude with George Mueller who said at the funeral for his wife, "I will miss her in numberless ways, but I continually kiss the hand that afflicts me."
So is God safe? No... but He´s good!
Let me ask you to do four things this morning. They won´t be easy and I will pray that God gives you the grace to accomplish these things.
1. Believe with all your heart that God is all powerful and absolutely in control.
2. Believe with all your heart that everything God does is right and good.
3. Repent of all the times you have questioned God or rebelled against him for the way he has treated you, and
4. Be satisfied with the holy purpose and plan of God and do not complain against it.
I´m a young boy and I´m at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. I have dug a hole in the sand. I´ve filled the hole with water. The water in my imagination becomes an ocean.
A stick becomes a ship. Some sand collapses into the water - an avalanche.
I see the entire ocean in that hole. I am in control. I understand what´s happening to the ship as it´s tossed about. What I am also about to become aware of is that the real tide is coming in. In just a moment, the real ocean - so deep I would never find the bottom - so wide I can´t see the other side - will cover my pretend ocean. God´s knowledge, His wisdom and glory dwarf the real oceans, the earth and the universe. Who can comprehend it? No one, but in the pursuit of comprehending...is eternal life.