Rebuke but Don’t Criticize

 

WHY SOME TRIALS NEVER END by: James MacDonald

    The apostle Paul is famous for his thorn. So what was it? A lot of ink has been spilled trying to answer that question. Tertullian, a church historian, said it was headaches. Ramsey said it was epilepsy. Luther said that it was demonic oppression. Augustine said that it was his relational adversaries in Corinth.

    A thorn. The word thorn is used only once in the New Testament, in 2 Corinthians 12:7 (NASB): “To keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh” The Greek word literally means a splinter; a stake; a thorn. It’s a small piece of wood imbedded in the skin that causes injury. And really—the pain is disproportionate to its size.

A THORN IS AN ENDURING SOURCE OF PERSONAL PAIN ALLOWED BY GOD FOR YOUR GOOD.

ALLOWED BY GOD

That phrase allowed by God needs some clarification. Honestly, it’s a mystery. How could a loving God allow painful, difficult things to happen even as He does? This word allowed is really important. Not directly caused—not by God. Did God give me cancer? Some people whose faith and theology I greatly respect would say, Yes, He did. But I do not believe that.

Did God cause the tsunami that happened in Indonesia on the day after Christmas 2004? Did God part the earth and ripple the water that caused 300,000 people to be swept to their deaths? Did God cause the heartache and destruction that blew in with Hurricane Katrina? Some would say, “Yes, He did.”

This is important for us to think through. When I walk through deep valleys with people in my church, we frame their trials within these five borders:

1. Omnipotence Has Its Limits.

When you say that God is all powerful, you have to know what you’re talking about. Theologians used to wrestle with questions like: Can God make a rock so big He can’t lift it? Ah, no, He cannot! Because no matter how big He made it He can lift it. But what if He made it twice as big as that? Be careful with the questions you form. Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God can do absolutely anything that you can conceive of.

There are many things God can’t do. God “cannot lie” (Titus 1:2 NASB). Nor can God make a round square. God cannot make a married bachelor, though some have tried. Either you’re married or you’re not.

2. The World That God Made Is Good.

In its original form, as God designed and instituted it, this world was perfect. But it was a very particular kind of world that God chose to make—He wanted to make a world in which people were free to choose. He could have made a world where we were all robots. He could have made a world where we all came over to the church on Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. and said, “I worship You. Amen” He could’ve made it so we all did that perfectly—every time! But how much would that mean to Him?

If I said to my wife, “Honey, it’s Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. It’s time to tell you I love you again. So, ‘I love you.’ I’ll see you next week”—how meaningful would that be? Not very. My wife doesn’t want that and neither does God. He doesn’t want robotic worship. God wants meaningful worship. In order to have meaningful worship, God had to create us with the opportunity to choose. In order to have meaningful obedience, there had to be the possibility of volitional disobedience.

3. God Made a World in Which People Are Truly Free to Choose.

People are free to choose, which means not everyone will choose Him. God prefers the meaningful worship of the few over the robotic worship of the masses. He took a pass on a puppet creation. Because He chose to make a world in which people were free to choose, He could not make a world in which people were free to choose and, at the same time, guarantee that everyone would choose Him.

4. The Effects of Sin Visit Themselves Randomly upon the Creation.

Given the kind of world that God wanted to create, the effects of sin visit themselves randomly upon the creation. In a world in which man and woman were free to choose, we chose to sin. And because Adam and Eve chose sin, the creation is broken (Genesis 3:17, 18; Romans 8:20). The world doesn’t work right. People get cancer. People die prematurely. Accidents happen. People get sick. I’m not saying that we’re not responsible for that; I’m just saying that the whole thing is broken.

5. God Could Prevent the Effects of Sin.

Remember, God made a world in which people are free to choose (border 3 above). God could not make a world with freedom of choice and at the same time guarantee everyone would choose Him. When people do not choose God, they bring consequences upon themselves and everyone else.

I believe that occasionally God does intervene, but normally God allows the broken creation to go on as it is and for horrible events to happen. God allows those things. Then this is what He does instead: He inserts Himself post-event and promises Himself to the people who are facing the trial so that we can display the superiority of the life lived in God. We go through the same things that people who don’t know the Lord go through and yet our experience is so different.