Does God Really Care?
During the last few weeks, it has been so refreshing to be able to see some of my friends in person, as some of the restrictions have lifted. It’s been wonderful to sit over coffee or have them over to the house and just be able to enjoy great food and even better conversation. But almost every time, there’s been the same sheepish admission. Fear and anxiety has crept into our lives in some way.
The conversation would be light and funny as we all feel the ability to relax just a bit again and feel some normalcy but as time goes by, someone will admit that they’re struggling with this feeling of loss.
For some it’s a loss of what they were used to in their day-to-day life. Others it’s a loss of confidence and assurance of what they knew before Covid-19 and now the racial tension we all feel in our world. But for others it has created something more than just a few sleepless nights.
Our emotions are so heightened right now that it feels like the ground beneath us is shaky and unreliable. I have to admit that some of the things that I thought were so important before all of this are now discarded in light of all that has happened over the last 3 or 4 months. Those things I know needed to be dealt with were replaced with more positive thought processes.
For one, I made a promise to myself and to a friend for accountability, that I wouldn’t pick up my phone to scroll through social media or the news until I had picked up my Bible. And if I were going to read and watch news for hours throughout the day, then I needed to read, pray and listen to uplifting messages for as long or longer. I needed balance. I needed to be informed but I needed to steady my foundation, reinforce my faith and prepare my mind for the barrage that was to come.
But what do we do when it feels like our foundation is faltering? Those things that we have built our belief system on seem to have disappeared?
In his book “Walking with God”, author John Eldredge writes about a friend that he runs into that he hadn’t seen in a long time. His once vibrant friend, a strong Christian, seemed lost, hurt and confused. After a long string of unexpected challenges and hardships, he tried to put on a brave face but it was obvious that his foundation was shaken. The author says this to describe what he feels happens to so many of us as believers. “This may be one of the most common, most unquestioned and most naïve assumptions people who believe in God share. We assume that because we believe in God, and because He is love, He’s going to give us a happy life.”
That statement gave me pause. At first my reaction was “no, I don’t feel that way.” But the more I sat and really thought about it, I had to admit that I did. That’s exactly my reaction when I was told that two incredible women, women of great faith, women with young families, passed away in the last two weeks. It’s exactly how I felt when one of my dearest friends succumbed to cancer while doing unbelievable work for God in Africa with children who were marginalized. It’s more than the “why, God?” It’s the questions that we don’t want to face. Is God good? Is He fair? Does He care? Or the statement, if God loved me, He would have done this or He wouldn’t have allowed that. You fill in the blanks. We all have them. We just don’t want to admit it. We’re scared to know what the answer is.
Just this past week, I read that a well-known Christian singer came out publicly denying that God exists. His questions were pretty much verbatim to these. He couldn’t reconcile the God of love that he was taught about with the one he read about in the Old Testament; the one who allows people to be hurt, broken and betrayed; the one who seemingly watched as people died of debilitating diseases.
And he’s not the first by any means. How did he get there after following Jesus for dozens of years? Some may shake their heads and judge him but when tragedy hits close to home and we start to unravel those threads that hold us close to God, we realize that we all have those questions to some extent.
What do we do with all those questions? The ones that we dare not ask for fear of the answers. The ones who incite this fear and anxiety in our hearts that were once firm and true in our beliefs.
Not for a second do I feel like I have the answers to these for you, dear reader, but I can share how I have dealt with them through the years.
The first is this. The one overarching truth that I hold on to when things around me seem to crumble is that God loved us so much that He gave us His Son. Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Yes, yes Mary, we know that this truth is the tenet of our belief in God and what Jesus did for us but that doesn’t answer the deep questions we’re talking about.
Doesn’t it? Of all the religions in the world, and there are thousands, Christianity is the ONLY one, that believes that diety came down to us, to our level, to be one of us. Think about it. Jesus wanted to know what it felt like to be human; to hurt, to be cold or lonely, to feel loss and rejection. Have you ever really let that sink in to your mind and heart? Just like that idea that is just under the surface that God is love so He should make our lives happy, the idea that Jesus came down, left Heaven and the glory that came with it, to be like us because of His deep, abiding love for us. And not just as a grown man who suddenly appeared on the scene, but as a baby. He chose to be born to a normal family, not royalty, in a town that people said nothing good ever came from it. He chose obscurity over wealth; humility over power. He wanted to know what it would feel like to be Mary Henderson or Joe Smith. He wanted it all. He wanted to be able to say “I know how you feel right now, daughter or son.”
Why? Because He knew that we would feel all of those things; fear, loss, anxiety, joy, pain, grief, loneliness, rejection. Never once does He lie to His disciples and tell them that because they knew and believed in Him, there lives would be happy, easy or perfect. In fact, He told them this in John 16. He is talking plainly to His disciples, His friends, the ones closest to Him, about His death and resurrection. They tell Him that they finally understand now what He has been trying to say (or at least they thought they did) and He says this to them.
John 16:31 -33 Jesus replied, “Now you finally believe in me. And the time has come when you will all be scattered, and each one of you will go your own way, leaving me alone! Yet I am never alone, for the Father is always with me. And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have overcome the world!”
Jesus told us that we would have trouble. He said that there would be sorrows. That pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? Those two things cover the gamut from a job loss, a divorce, death of a loved one, rejection of a friend, unexpected illness and everything in between.
But He doesn’t leave them there which means He hasn’t left you there either. In the same sentence, He gives us a challenge and a hope. He tells us to be courageous, to be brave and then He tells us what we need to understand when all these big and small troubles and hardships come our way. He has overcome them. Other translations say that He has conquered the world or He has overcome them all! We don’t have to overcome or conquer them. He already has. He has already made a way. He has already walked that path and knows the outcome. All we have to do is believe, trust and be brave as we walk down these new roads.
Let’s continue this conversation in my next blog. I’d love to give you some other practical ways to answer these challenging questions! I look forward to seeing you there!
