CS Lewis said
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”

I have heard “Some people can see God only when they are flat on their backs.”

In the midst of everything, looking back across my earlier years, I was arrogant and prideful and saw no need for God. I was doing just fine, thank you very much. Because of His great love, He cared enough for me to put me on my back, and because I am an idiot, He has kept me there so that I can see as clearly as possible. For that gift, I can only thank and praise Him for helping me to see just how weak and frail I really was, and still am.

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When it comes to suffering, after settling my mind about the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture: of course the first question to ask is: what does God’s word say about this subject? It was through the objective truth of Scripture that I wanted to interpret my subjective experiences, not the other way around. God’s word can be trusted, my fleeting thoughts and emotions can not always be trusted. There is a very common expression today: “follow your heart”. But even here, God tells us: Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” So once again, the point being that when it comes to suffering, or anything else really, we should interpret our experiences through the objective truth of Scripture, not the other way around, not by clichés like: “following your bliss” or “follow your heart”.  Jesus, the Great Physician, lists the grim symptoms of our hearts: “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matthew 15:19).

There are numerous passages of Scripture that have come to mean a lot to me when it comes to suffering, here are a few:

Paul tells us
2 Corinthians 1:3-4 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

Ephesians 1:11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works ***all things*** according to the counsel of his will”. As Don often reminds us, there is no Plan B. God works all things according to the counsel of His will, not most things.. not some things… all things.. including pain and suffering.

Romans 5:3-5 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Anything that happens, suffering included, God either wills directly, or indirectly wills it by allowing it to happen.

This set of verses, and many many other passages in Scripture, tells me that God is absolutely sovereign over all aspects of creation, including suffering. There are no maverick molecules running around outside of God’s sovereign control, this is my Father’s world. Suffering serves many purposes; directing us towards seeing our need for God, it happens so that we can comfort others who who may be going through the same experiences we have been through, it produces character and ultimately, hope. But the point is… even in the midst of suffering God is on His throne. When suffering happens and someone asks “where was God when X happened?”, the answer is He is in the same place now as He was when His Son was on the Cross. He is still in control.

CS Lewis said “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

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When it comes to questions about feeling as if I do not deserve what I am going through, or asking “why me?” when in the midst of suffering, I had come to see that the Fall has radically and pervasively affected all creation, including human nature, and God’s holiness was a more profound issue than I had originally thought. Isa. 6 made me realize that even sinless unfallen angels have to cover themselves when in His presence. If that is the case, then I now understand why Isaiah said ““Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Outside of salvation, of having been justified by grace through faith, having been saved by works… sure… but not by my works, for by works no one will be saved. (see Romans 3:20-30; Galatians 2:16 and 3:10-12) Only by being clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ could I ever hope to stand before God. That being said, our very will itself is in bondage to sin. Our will prior to salvation is not free to do anything except to operate within this fallen nature, ie to sin. Mankind is not “free” in some kind of Libertarian sense. But this is not to say man is as evil as he could be, even someone like Hitler could  have been more evil than he already was.

The larger point is understanding our dire situation outside of Christ, and realizing I really have no right to ask “why me, what did I do to deserve X?” because that question carries with it the connotation that I somehow do not deserve to go through suffering. But humanity is fallen and sinful. What does a person like that… like me… really deserve? GK Chesterson once said “Original sin is the only doctrine that's been empirically validated by 2,000 years of human history.” So it seemed to me that I needed to be very cautious when thinking about what I do or do not deserve. In fact, I realized I do not want what I actually deserve at all, namely God’s righteous and just judgment for my sins. In reality I want grace and mercy, not justice.