Questions in the Dark
by Pamela Meeks
I often quote Paul David Tripp (pastor and author). Besides focusing on grace in the message of the Gospel, he asks good questions. For example: Do you judge God’s goodness by the amount of suffering or difficulties in your life? Do you judge the faithfulness of God by how much disappointment and grief you have had to endure? These kinds of questions get me thinking about how easy it is to make presumptions about God’s goodness or faithfulness based on our circumstances in life at the time.
It is relatively easy to take the good days and thank God for them. We may have had a good night’s rest, we see the sun shining, and we get to eat our favorite breakfast. “God is good and God is faithful,” is easy to say. But what happens when we wake up after a couple hours of sleep, our back is sore, and the coffee tastes stale for unknown reasons? How do we trust God’s goodness when circumstances have completely upended our lives and we struggle to stay emotionally stable? The temptation to doubt God’s goodness and faithfulness is strong when we have tied our perception of God’s goodness to how we are feeling.
But what happens when life is disappointing and we experience loss and trials? Do we think that God is good and faithful even in the midst of that? Can we trust that God has a plan to redeem the awful stuff in our lives? These moments do not mean that God has forgotten us or has somehow failed to hear our prayers by ignoring our cries for help. Don’t get me wrong, faithful people experience horrifically difficult situations in life that would be hard to endure and to remain a faithful disciple. In times like these, it would be hard to say that God is good. But we have to remember a couple things. God may not intervene in every situation that brings us pain. God could look at these situations and consider that this trial could strengthen our faith, grow our resilience, and deepen our perseverance. Nothing in life is guaranteed, so we may not come out stronger or more resilient but we certainly do not grow our character when all of life goes along smoothly. We wouldn’t even know if we had true grit if not for the opportunities to fail at it.
See, God is more committed to making our characters conform more and more into the image of Christ, than committed to our general happiness (Rom. 8:29: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son). We can know for certain that God’s goal for us is so much higher and deeper than what we hoped for when life is going swimmingly. Can we trust that God is good and God is faithful when life is painful? In times like these we desperately need the body of Christ to remind us that despite our feelings, we really can trust God to be good to us. We might only be able to see it in the long run and the way might be murky, but the best way to navigate the hard stuff is to continue to remember that God is faithful, regardless of all our present circumstances.
The Rev. Pamela Meeks is the Associate Rector at Church of the Epiphany Anglican in Chantilly, VA. She also serves as a member of the Great Commission Committee.