The Course of Restoration

And what we find many times–and maybe not on this side of glory–is that God had a greater plan in mind, something that we did not see, something that He had been weaving together. This is the dilemma that we face sometimes: when we have a loving God yet we find ourselves in an unloving situation.

I suppose this is part of the bitterness of freedom–and I don’t want to go too far down this road–but some people look and they say, “I can’t believe that there is a God because of all the suffering that goes on in the world.”

I often want to say to them, “If you don’t believe in a God, what is the purpose of suffering? What’s the purpose of suffering in this world?” See, as Christians, even though there is suffering and though it’s difficult and it doesn’t get any less difficult, really. A person who is struggling with cancer, whether or not they’re saved… there’s still that physical pain they’ll be going through and there’s still going to be the same earthly tribulations as the person who is unsaved. And yet our perspective changes; because the person who believes that there is no God, that life is terrible then you die–who has that mentality–suddenly all of the suffering that goes on in the world has no purpose. It goes unanswered. The rapists, the murderers–all of these things–go unanswered. They just are. So there’s this fatalism that you have to ascribe to if you don’t believe in God.

And yet we as Christians can say, “I know the Master of the storm. I know the One who can calm this storm and can bring me through this storm.” And this gives us a great hope when we have this Master of our storms… so we need to recognize God’s position.

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