A Cruel God?<\/p>\n
Copyright by Shea Oakley<\/p>\n
All rights reserved<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are times in our lives when circumstances tempt us to think that God is cruel. Suffering comes to all of us . The effects of the Fall spare no one. Life is hard at times and the pain we endure does not always seem to make any kind of sense. In fact sometimes there appears to be a sort of terrible randomness to suffering.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is one thing to experience the misery that comes from obvious sin on our part. In reaping what we have sown we at least have a sense of justice being satisfied. It makes less sense to us when we reap what another has sown against us or when we cannot even pin down why <\/em>we are reaping pain at all. The word \u201cunfair\u201d enters our consciousness. We may try to piously deny it but at one time or another all human beings, Christians included, have experienced a sense of unfairness in the way the world works. Our hearts cry out that it should not be this way. To suffer is to know that, though it should not be this way, it is.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Bible does not seem to provide us with any easy answers to what C.S. Lewis once called \u201cThe problem of pain\u201d. The book that seemingly comes closest is Job. Here we are faced with the problem of a man who God Himself declares to be righteous being subject to almost unimaginable suffering. When Job asks the question why<\/em> he has, from a fallen human perspective, as good reason to ask it as perhaps any man who has ever lived.\u00a0 But God answers out of an awesome whirlwind with a revelation of both His majesty and His inscrutability. Job repents in dust and ashes for even having asked the \u201cwhy question.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Is it possible that there is a way to leave the inquiry unanswered yet still find comfort in the midst of our pain? Questions about whether God is sometimes cruel do indeed have an answer; but not in the sense of finding out why He allows suffering. Instead the answer is found on the cross.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We may not know why we suffer but we can know a God who suffers with us.<\/p>\n In Jesus we have God\u2019s answer to the \u201cproblem of pain.\u201d If God is truly cruel why would He incarnate Himself as a man and share in the same kind of suffering we know as human beings in order to ultimately free us from our own pain? Is God a masochist? No, He is the Lover of our souls and while He has subjected us to the just results of our individual and corporate sin He also has entered into our pain for the purpose of our redemption. In Christ we see the only innocent Man coming to Earth to bear our pain with us and for us. We see this throughout the Gospels withCalvarybeing the culmination, the place where God bore the ultimate agony of carrying all of our sins, every wrong that every human being has ever committed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Why He created a universe where such misery could come from the human ability to be disobedient to His will cannot ever be fully known this side of Heaven. But we can know that He takes no pleasure from our suffering and will someday bring that suffering to an end. All we have to do to know that is to look to Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Cruel God? Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved There are times in our lives when circumstances tempt us to think that God is cruel. Suffering comes to all of us . The effects of the Fall spare no one. Life is hard at times and the pain we endure does not always… <\/p>\n