Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Hey, guys. So I was gonna go skiing this morning with my beautiful daughter. Say, hi, Eloise. Hello. And we loaded the car up and the snowboards in the back. And then I'm halfway up to the mountain and the car starts to shake and bump. And there was a problem with suspension, and I had to turn around to come home. And this might be one of the only days I get to ski this entire year because of how busy the core confirmation program has kept me. And of course, it brings up questions like this.
[00:00:22] Why God? I mean, here I am busting my butt serving you, and why would you let this happen to me? Of course, I'm being kind of silly here right now, guys, but every time we do suffer or experience some kind of pain that comes into our lives that we didn't plan on, some curve ball that just knocks everything out. It does. It brings up those fundamental existential questions about life.
[00:00:44] Why do we suffer? Now people land on three conclusions about why we suffer. And obviously, this isn't the greatest of sufferings. This is a very first world problem that I didn't get to go skiing and maybe won't get to all season.
[00:00:58] Whatever. There's always next year. But look, there's also big sufferings that you might be going through, right? Like you're facing an illness or the marriage is falling apart for reasons you can't control, or whatever it is you're facing in life. And there's three different ways to approach this. Number one, that everything happens by chance and that you're just suffering because life is just life. And there's nobody in charge. There's nobody steering the ship, and sometimes it just busts into a wall. That's number one.
[00:01:24] Number two, because you deserved it.
[00:01:28] You know, honestly, even the silly idea that, well, haven't I been serving you, Lord? So I put my quarters into the gumball machine. Shouldn't I get a gumball back?
[00:01:36] I've been good, so therefore good things should happen. Oh, wait. But maybe I've been bad and that's why bad things are happening. I'm not a good enough person, so God's overlooking me. Or God's keeping score and he's tallying up the points against me, and it's busting in my head now in the form of suffering. That's his lightning bolt coming at me. Whether it's an illness or a messed up day, I just wasn't good enough. And that's karma, right? That's the idea of karma. And then number three, there's the idea that there's a loving God and father who's actually in charge of your life and has a plan to bring about some greater good through your pain. Obviously, I'm going to land on three, but let me circle back to two for a minute. Karma is an awful idea. It really is. And listen, I have great respect for all religions and people who are trying to follow God to the best of their ability as they know him and as they've been taught about him as kids. But karma is the idea that there is an objective moral truth. There's a moral code, and there's such a thing as sin, and there's no savior.
[00:02:28] It's an awful idea.
[00:02:30] And if you believe in karma, if you're dominated by the idea of karma, this idea that, you know, if you do bad things, there's a scorecard kept against you, it racks up more and more, and no amount of I'm sorry is going to wipe it away. Only your suffering, your pain, you're paying the price.
[00:02:44] Obviously, the good side of that is, well, I do good things. I can control the process and control my own redemption and control blessings that come upon me because of the good things that I've done, right? But guys, everybody messes up and everybody needs a savior. Don't believe me? Watch the news. The fact that we all need a savior staring us in the face at all times and the idea that we need a savior and there is none is just bad news. Jesus brings us very good news.
[00:03:07] So try Christianity. If you're living under the code of karma with no redeemer, God is not an angry guy keeping score. He's a father who loves you. And he sent his only son to set us free. But there's the idea of karma. But I tell you what, I'm talking about Hinduism, guys. Karma doesn't just come from a particular religion. It comes from natural law. It comes from the idea that there's fair and there's unfair.
[00:03:28] There's a system of justice that we all fall under. So it really kind of logically makes sense, doesn't it?
[00:03:34] And even religions whose sacred books didn't teach karma, people fell into it because of that idea of the basic concept of fairness. And this includes the people in Jesus time, the people who are following Jesus, his apostles, they passed by a man born blind.
[00:03:49] And this is the Sunday gospel. And they said, rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind.
[00:03:57] What a horrible thing to say. But that's karma, dude. Who sinned, somebody had to mess up or this guy wouldn't be messed up in this way. He wouldn't be suffering in this way if he had not sinned.
[00:04:09] Jesus gives a very straightforward answer.
[00:04:12] Neither.
[00:04:14] Neither sinned because God's a loving father.
[00:04:18] And he said, which fits the third philosophy about how to approach suffering, how to see it. Neither his parents nor he sinned. It is so the works of God might be made visible through him.
[00:04:31] Peter Kreef writes a great reflection on suffering in his book the Three Philosophies of Life. And he wrote a beautiful section on Job that answers the question how a good God who loves us might let us suffer. And he explains it like this, that if there's a kid on the roof of a building named Johnny, let's say Johnny's on the roof of a building, Johnny's dad is on the bottom floor and says, johnny, jump. Johnny jumps. Johnny's dad backs up, lets Johnny splatter himself on the sidewalk. That's a messed up dad, right? But what if that dad is a father who sees everything from beginning to end and he knows that Johnny will sue the sidewalk paving company, get $2 million.
[00:05:03] I think it says a million in the book, but we're doing the inflation thing, so $2 million for that.
[00:05:08] the hospital, one of the nurses is the girl of his dreams. His entire life pans out, becomes a beautiful experience of life. Just because the father backed up and let Johnny momentarily hurt himself on the sidewalk. Well, if he knew all that was going to happen, he would be a bad father to not allow some momentary pain, wouldn't he?
[00:05:26] You have a father who sees everything from beginning to end.
[00:05:31] And this might sound heartless, but I don't think that our momentary pain is the most important thing to him. It's really not.
[00:05:37] Because he sees from the eternal perspective that it is over in the flash of an eye. Boom. And then you missed skiing and get to have a great breakfast with your daughter. We had an awesome breakfast and it's going to be a great day.
[00:05:49] But I'll tell you what. If you get caught up in this idea of karma, this idea that you have to control things and don't just let go and ride the wave, whatever wave you're on, knowing that the father has some other plan in mind for you, you're going to miss the blessing. You're going to miss the blessing. But what if the suffering is so intense and so profound that you're actually facing death, you're praying to get better, you have the frustrating, awful experience, and it can. It is so frustrating. And I'll Tell you what, don't feel alone in this, because literally everyone is going to go through this because no one gets out alive. What if you have that experience that you're suffering and you feel like, well, there the story ends. Well, guys, the story doesn't end there.
[00:06:24] I mean, the answer to pain, to the problem of pain, is the cross.
[00:06:29] It's that we have a God who hung on a cross, who doesn't stay hidden behind clouds, who, when you want to say God, you have no idea what this is like. Even to die or to watch friends fall away from you, who are supposed to be there, to have, you know, family members not show up and have your back and to watch your body decay in front of you. He does. He knows what it's like. He even knows what it's like to feel abandoned by the Father. And he said, my God, why have you forsaken me? And why? So that you and me would never have to say those words alone. When we feel that in the depths of our soul.
[00:06:59] Hmm, that is heavy stuff.
[00:07:04] But his answer to pain is to enter it.
[00:07:08] And to show you that when you enter pain, you enter his presence in a distinct, unrepeatable, amazing way. It becomes a point of union with God. And if the pain becomes so great that it actually leads to death.
[00:07:21] One of my dear friends who died of cancer and she was young and she left four kids behind, she said, look, I'm going to get better.
[00:07:30] I'm going to get better. God's going to heal me.
[00:07:33] That actually might come the moment I die, and I'll wake up and my eyes will open and I'll be better. But death does not have the final word. We win.
[00:07:42] God doesn't cause pain and suffering.
[00:07:45] He allows it to, as is in the case in his healing of the blind man, to be assigned to bring us to greater glory. It's the only reason now, at the end of life, that greater glory will be heaven throughout life in the little pains that we go through. It'll be the breakfast with your daughter if you ride the wave.
[00:08:05] Or maybe it'll just be the way that you suffer with grace and are a shining light and a witness to the kingdom of God. Because sometimes it makes no sense without the help of grace for you to have peace and joy in the midst of suffering. And God needs you to shine his light, to shine a ray of hope to someone else who sees no purpose to life, no purpose in their suffering. I love this beautiful saying that Jesus didn't suffer so we wouldn't have to he suffered, so we'd know how to.
[00:08:31] Of course, remembering all this doesn't take the pain of suffering away. It doesn't make suffering suddenly not suffering. But it helps you face that suffering as a victor, not a victim.
[00:08:42] Did I say it all? Did I cover it? Was that good? Did it stink? Is it worth posting? Yeah. Good. I love you guys. I'm praying for you. Pray for me.
