Last year at Thanksgiving we were praying Melissa Stobbe through lung transplant surgery. This year we’re praying a family and town through a murder. There’s no good timing for crisis, nor for tragedy.
Why doesn’t God stop suffering and evil? When tragedies happen we can wonder, why didn’t God stop it? Where is God when people kill each other at the World Trade Center or the war in Iraq and Africa? Where is God when someone in our town is killed?
Was it God’s will? Is everything that happens God’s will? A tower fell over and killed 18 people in Jerusalem when Jesus was there. People asked Jesus if God did that to punish them. Jesus answered that question by saying they weren’t any worse sinners than anybody else.
Did God decide that Dawn Moore’s time was up? Do people die because of God’s plan, or is there also accident. Is there also the consequences of the evil deeds of people?
I had to lead the funeral for a young man who drowned while he was swimming drunk at 3 a.m. The football coach said, “God must have needed another linebacker in heaven.” But I don’t believe God killed that boy, and I said it in the funeral. That boy died because of his choice, not God’s.
Many people find comfort in the belief that God sets the time to die. To others, this is contrary to the character of the God of the Bible. That God is the life giver. He wants to make life, not destroy it.
The Bible shows us that God is in control of the creation. Our word for that is sovereign. God is sovereign. There are verses that seem to mean that everything that happens is God’s will. The Bible also tells us about free will, our choice. We can accept or reject God’s life and the salvation offered at the cross. Our choice influences whether we live a Godly life. Will we add to the life or the death in the world? Are you confused? A sovereign God in control, and free will, seem to contradict. So some emphasize one, and some emphasize the other. Both are in the Bible.
So where is God in a tragedy like murder? It was not God’s will. God grieves along with the rest of us. But our sovereign God works to bring good out of any situation. And God will be showing us, eventually, how that can happen.
So we ask “If God is all loving and all powerful, why is there evil in the world. Why is there suffering in the world?"
Suffering is sometimes necessary to teach us life’s lessons. Sometimes suffering is punishment we bring on ourselves. Or more likely, it has something to do with love. The Bible doesn’t say God is here to make us comfortable, it says God is love. A friend is ill, and that changes our schedule when we sacrifice for their care. Then, if they get well, we are closer to that friend because some of our life is invested in theirs. If they don’t get well, we know they felt loved before they died. Either way, love was added to our life in a way that wouldn’t have happened if there had been no suffering. One translation of one of Jesus’ sayings goes like this: “Happy are they who bear their share of the world’s pain. In the long run they will know more happiness than those who avoid it.”
Pain and pleasure are not opposites, and neither are suffering and love.
So what do we do with our pain?
The local newspaper this week also told us about college students who slept outside in cardboard shelters. It was homeless awareness night. They purposely choose the pain of cold night to feel the evil of poverty. They choose to get a taste of the horror of homelessness.
Some of the pain we bear we didn’t choose. Because of some evil deed, we hurt. But since God brings good out of evil, even that pain can be a motivator. Just like last year we felt the pain of Andrew Wallace’s death in the Iraq war, now this year we’ve felt the pain of Dawn Moore’s murder in our town. We’ve felt the horror, perhaps, of a husband killing his own wife.
Back on Oct. 8th, I preached about strengthening the family. I said we and our children are more likely to get hurt by someone we love in the home than anywhere else. I passed out the contact numbers and addresses for domestic abuse and other services. Now we’re reminded again that violence can happen here.
What will we do? This violence can remind us to teach our children that hitting each other is not right. I told you in that family protection sermon a month ago that when I ask people in pre-marriage counseling what they want their children to learn from their father, many times the answer is, “how to treat his wife”. Hitting a wife to control her is not love. We don’t get married to control each other, we get married for a give and take relationship.
What will we do? We can repress the horror, or we can put it to good use. We can hold on to the horror to get us to do something when he hear of someone in trouble, when we hear of a woman who is getting beaten by her husband. We can steer her to safety in a shelter and people who can protect her. There is the Christine Ann Center in Green Lake and Oshkosh and Bethany House Shelter in Fond du Lac . I put copies of those addresses on a table in the lounge.
If we go back to life as usual, and don’t watch out for each other, somebody else may get hurt. We can put the horror to good use. Just like those students at homeless awareness night, we can use the pain for our motivator.
We got a reminder again this week that people do evil. I didn’t say people are evil, I said people do evil. We can try to ignore the evil we see from the news, but we couldn’t ignore it this week. Evil happens to us, too. And friends, don’t ignore it when you feel it inside you. We are tempted to do it when we feel threatened. When our bodies, or our family, or our country, or our religion is threatened, we start thinking of doing something awful to protect ourselves. We can think of ways to justify lying and cheating and other hurts when we feel threatened. The longer we keep thinking about it by ourselves, the more in danger we are to do it. Tell God. Tell someone who cares about you. Tell me. Hang on to the sickening horror of evil, for your own sake.
One of the news stories this week was about a town that is trying to banish pedophiles. Where is the town that is trying to help the pedophile keep from acting out his or her fantasy? It is evil. It is wrong. But we don’t solve it by hiding from it.
What else will we do?
We can support Dawn’s brother Barrie and sister Kay and nieces and nephews and especially, Dawn and Kevin’s son. Any of us who remember her can tell the boy about his mother as he grows up. Those of us close to family members can offer to babysit. We can be the coaches and scout leaders ready to include him and his cousins. We can be ready to listen when a family member wants to talk about Dawn. We can give to the trust fund set up for Carter’s care as he grows up.
The apostle Paul told the Corinthians of all the sufferings he had endured, but not to complain that they blocked God’s work. No, in many cases, those sufferings were used by God to convince people of the gospel. God brought his salvation to people because of some of those evil things.
It’s Thanksgiving this week. We won’t let tragedy cheat us out of Thanksgiving. We can still be thankful for the food, the health, the family, the country, the usual things we think of to give thanks for. Give thanks for the thing that gives our life meaning, our relationship with Jesus Christ. But we can also give thanks for the good that God is bringing, even out of tragedy.