If God is Real, Why doesn't My Life Get Better?

Patrick Vaughn

In 1871 the only son of Horatio Spafford died, shortly after that the great

Chicago Fire struck him with a large financial blow. In 1873 he planned a trip to Europe and sent his wife and four daughters ahead of him while he was delayed on business. Not far into the voyage their ship the SS Ville de Havre collided with an English freighter and sank. Once in the water Anna was separated from her daughters and eventually exhausted and freezing lost hold of the youngest who was only 18 months. Anna was saved and sent her husband a two word telegram, “Saved alone”. In two years Horatio Spafford had suffered the loss of all five of his children and been struck with financial misfortune.

Horatio Spafford was a man of faith, he and his wife loved Christ. Why then if God is real, did Horatio Spafford’s life not get better after the death of his son? Or, after the fire? Why was his suffering prolonged with the death of his daughters?

I don’t know for sure but I would be surprised if Horatio Spafford in the years that followed 1873 didn’t ask, if you are real God, why doesn’t my life get better? Or maybe he asked it even more boldly as the Psalmist cries out,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1) So how do we begin to answer this question? To whom do we turn?

Hebrews 12:1-2 reminds us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. . .” It is to Jesus Christ we are to turn because in him we find the full revelation of who God is and what it means to be human. He is the pioneer and the perfecter of our faith who has endured great suffering and shame even death. We cannot understand the ways of God if we do not turn to the One who shows us the character of God and God’s relationship to creation.

This morning I want to focus on two assumptions that might be underneath the question, if God is real, why doesn’t my life get better? The first assumes that maybe your life is not getting better because God actually isn’t good. 1 John 4:8 is a bunch of bologna when it says “God is love”. For if

God was love then, He would hear my prayers and see my suffering and my life would get better. We could choose to make this judgment upon God’s character based on our life and circumstances in the world. Or, we could choose to base our assessment of God’s character based on who God has shown Himself to be.

Looking at Jesus is God good? During his life he believed in those who nobody else believed in, calling tax collectors and fishermen to be disciples and apostles. He made friends with the outcast and the brokenhearted, the widow, prostitutes, tax collectors, thieves, and Roman soldiers. The blind and lame came in throngs and believed that he could heal them and many were some by merely touching his cloak. He brought Lazarus back from the dead and the Centurion's servant too. Many religious leaders respected his teaching and were intrigued by his insights. He challenged the status quo and when they came to arrest him he did not fight back in violence or with hateful words. He suffered beatings and humiliation and was killed.

God is good because in the cross not only does God confront all that is evil but he actually suffers himself the fullness of evil’s assault upon the love of God.1 God is not a masochist, he does not self inflict wounds. In Jesus’ teaching and healing throughout his entire ministry we see him fighting against the forces of evil and in the cross he suffers just as we do at the hands of all that is evil. The crucifixion is proof that once and for all God is indeed good and compassionate. We see that he is not the source of all that is evil nor does he sit idly by and watch as we suffer like ants under a magnify glass. God in Christ shares in our suffering and experiences the horror of separation from God as Jesus cries from the cross, “my God, my God, why have you forsaken me” (Matt. 27:46).

When we look to Jesus Christ we know not only that God is not evil, we know that God is greater than evil. For God enters into the depths of our pain and even suffers death but on the third day he rose showing that evil’s

1T.F. Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order, p. 117-118. “in the passion of Christ there took place a terribly real and anguished struggle on the part of God incarnate with something utterly sinister and relentlessly hostile, from which emerged the realization by Christian thought that evil is an assault upon the love of God. . . an anarchic force making for the [invalidation] and destruction of all that is true and good and orderly in God’s creation.”Original word in brackets was “vitiation”. greatest assault upon the love of God could not destroy it. God’s victory over evil in Christ reassures us that indeed the rest of Scripture is true when it proclaims: that God created and it was good, that God desires all the earth to be blessed, that God is love, and that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1:5). So the reason that your life does not get better is not because God is evil. God is good and we must remind ourselves of this truth. In Kenya I learned this call and response, “God is

Good” and you say “All the time”. God is good ….. God is good …. All the time …. All the time ….. God is good. Amen.

If God is good, then is the reason that life does not get better that you are not good? Are we undeserving? Are we lacking faith? Again we must turn to Jesus Christ the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Jesus came to bring freedom from sin and the evil that binds itself to us. Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36

So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:34-36). God is fully aware of our separation from Him and our enslavement to sin. John 3:17

"Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” God did not send Jesus to go around striking those who did not have enough faith dead with lightening bolts.

He did not rise from the dead and go after Pilate and the high priests to avenge his wrongful death. Jesus came to set us free, free from the evil that binds itself to the freedom that God has given us to be independent thinking and free willed people. Jesus came that we might be saved from the annihilation that awaits us if we follow evil.

God is not the clock maker who made the world cranked it up and left it to work itself out. Nor, is God the grand puppet master pulling all the strings. God’s character is one of radical freedom and the world created in His image reflects that freedom. We are thus free to love God and to make decisions free from

God. Yet at the same time it is in God that all life exists, without God all of the creation, the universe itself would evaporate into nothingness. God is the one who sustains all things and sets the limits of the universe. We exist freely as creatures created in God’s image within these appointed limits and thanks to

God’s life sustaining power.

After God created the human in Genesis 1:31, God surveys all of creation and affirms it all by saying it is “very good”. We are good and God loves us beyond measure. We know it because starting with Abraham leading up to

Jesus we see that God desires to bless all the nations of the earth (Genesis 12) and in Christ we see most clearly God’s desire to bring us back to Him not through force or coercive power. God brings us back by coming to us, suffering with us, and ultimately showing that God’s goodness and love is greater than all evil. God forgives our wandering, forgives our misuse of the freedom he has given us and sets us free from the power that evil has to corrupt us.2 All this is to

2 T.F. Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order, “It is the intertwining of evil with the act and being of the creature that is so difficult to grasp and express, for while evil does not originate from creaturely being as such, but enters in as an alien invader, it nevertheless becomes rooted in the creature in such a way that the creature becomes evil and does evil of itself. To revert to a use of personal terms, it is not merely that the human being sins against God and his neighbor, but that he becomes and is a sinner so that his sinful acts arise out of his own heart and mind. Yet this evil which the creature makes his won could have no natural counterpoise within his being, such as the negative aspect has in the positive aspect of contingent being, for it is alien and unnatural.”, 118. say, that the reason our life does not get better is not because we are undeserving or evil in God’s sight. In fact this could not be further from the truth.

God is crazy mad in love with you. God sees the wonderfulness in you and shows us in Christ the true goodness and love that humanity is capable of.

You may be saying okay we get that God is good and that we are good but where then does this evil that you talk about come from, why does it exist?

Again we must look to what God has revealed to us in Christ and through the scriptures. This is what we know. 1. God is good …. (all of the time) and is opposed to evil 2. we are created in God’s image as good and free creatures but our freedom results in the possibility of us rejecting God or straying from God.

3. We know because of our real experiences of it and the terribleness of the

Cross that evil is real and actual in the world. 4. And, most importantly we know that God in Christ overcomes evil as T.F. Torrance puts it, “the resurrection tells us that evil, even this abysmal evil, does not and cannot have the last word, for that belongs to the love of God which has negated evil once and for all and which through the cross and resurrection is able to make all things work for good, so that nothing in the end will separate us from the love of God.”3

But, now comes the frustrating part Jesus and scripture give no explanation for the existence or origin of evil other than that it truly does exist.

Evil is at its core an “utterly inexplicable mystery.”4 Karl Barth calls it the impossible possibility. We are faced with a choice to be overwhelmed and swept down into the depths of this mystery to drown from our lack of answers. Or we

3 T.F. Torrance, Divine and Contingent Order, 115-6. 4 Ibid, 118. can stand upon what we know and who we know, which is that God is totally and consistently opposed to evil and calls and empowers us to do the same because

He has overcome it.

That said some of the reasons for our life not getting better may be attributed to this inexplicable evil that persists in our world. For is there any real logical or rational answer for the deaths of Horatio Spafford’s children and financial misfortune? I hope that there is none, for if there was this would only give validity to evil and all its forces. Rather, we know that God stands in opposition to radical evil of this sort standing in solidarity with us having entered into our suffering himself in Christ to show us that God’s love reigns over all and in all.

God’s goodness, our goodness and the inexplicable mystery of evil does not absolve us of any responsibility though. For sometimes the reasons for our life not getting better may in fact be related to our own disobedience. Our own unwillingness to be dependent upon the love of God and our willingness to cooperate with evil often leads to our own suffering or the suffering of others.

We cannot fall into the trap of believing that we can overcome evil by ourselves, we cannot believe that we are immune to its charms, we cannot think for a moment that we can survive independently from God without at the same time depending upon his love for us.5

Martin Luther may have put it best in his famous hymn, A Mighty Fortress

Is Our God, “For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe; his craft and

5 “when individual human beings, groups, or nations, sure of their innocence and convinced of the utter wickedness of their enemies, claim for themselves the right and the power to rid the world of evil they often become themselves agents of evil.”Daneil Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 128. power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not his equal. Did in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing; were not the right Man on our side, the man of God’s own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus it is He.” For it is not us who has shown the power to over come death and all his friends6, it is God alone in Christ who has done so.

We must be real with ourselves and when it is appropriate acknowledge the times in our lives when we are the culprits for causing pain and suffering by repenting and accepting the full forgiveness found in Christ. Like the woman caught in adultery, Christ grants forgiveness and sends us off to go on our way and sin no more (John 8:11). We are recipients of forgiveness that we might become people who offer and receive forgiveness from one another breaking cycles of hate and evil in our midst.

I’ll close with this, how are we to live in the time where we know God has disarmed evil yet a shadow of it still persists in this world causing suffering? How are we to carry on when our life seems not to get better? We must look to Christ who invites us to cry out to God in the midst of our suffering and be wholly dependent upon the love of God. Jesus in his darkest hour as the full weight of evil and his impending death set in upon him did two things.

First, he acknowledged the terror and awfulness of the situation by praying to God, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not what I want but what you want." (Matthew 26:39). “Let this cup pass”, this phrase uttered by Jesus invites us to like him pray for the mercy of God. It is not something to be ashamed of to be fearful or overwhelmed by the weight of your

6 I stole this line from Coldplay’s song “Death and All His Friends” on their latest album “Viva La Vida” circumstances. Even Jesus pleaded with God to take the cup of suffering from him. God does not say to us “suck it up” or “look on the bright side”. Instead, we see in Jesus’ own suffering and reaction to it that there lies in God a full acknowledgment of the weight of the evils which cause our lives not to get better.

When we cry out to God we show that we are in opposition to the darkness that closes in on us.

When Jesus says “let this cup pass; yet not what I want but what you want,” he is acknowledging his utter dependence upon the love of God. We like Jesus in our crying out can affirm our trust in God’s purposes, not what I want but what you want” because his purposes are good. We are in need of God who is the only one who can defeat evil and who has proved He is able to do so in the resurrection. God’s plans are good and trustworthy.

Secondly Jesus goes to pray but he doesn’t do it alone. Matthew tells us that being grieved and agitated Jesus takes his closest disciples Peter, John and

James to stay awake with him and pray alongside him. As the darkness closes in, Jesus surrounds himself with community seeking the support of his brothers.

As a person going through the trials of life I must be willing to ask for help.

Like Jesus I need to find trusted brothers and sisters in Christ that can accompany me through the darkness, who will stay awake with me and pray with me. We may need people to remind us of God’s promises and in the darkest hour we may need people who claim those promises for us when we cannot. For the church this means we must seek to be an interdependent community that truly loves one another with words and action. Our society tells us to take care of numero uno or to get yours while you can and encourages us to live fragmented individualistic lives. This is not the sort of existence that we see Jesus and his disciples live, it is not the sort of existence we see the early church striving toward where everything was held in common and when someone was in need that need was provided for by the community (Acts 4:32).

Being a community of love that bears one another’s burdens is not easy. That’s why we have ½ the New Testament because church’s had a tough time doing it and needed to be reminded what it meant to be the body of Christ. But, when it happens, that community becomes transformed by the Spirit into a place where

God’s grace and blessing is embodied to one another and the world around it.

You may be wondering why I have spoken so much of Horatio Spafford through out this sermon. After the great tragedy he and his wife experienced they grieved and questioned God much. Fortunately, they had brothers and sisters in faith who supported, prayed for, encouraged and embodied God’s grace to them. Shortly after the death of his four daughters Horatio Spafford wrote the hymn, It Is Well With My Soul. As I read it to you keep in mind the suffering that this man was experiencing as he wrote this.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well, with my soul. Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, Let this blest assurance control, That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, And hath shed His own blood for my soul. My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in part but the whole, Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul! And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, The clouds be rolled back as a scroll; The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend, Even so, it is well with my soul.

Did Horatio Spafford write these words because his life had gotten better?

I don’t think so. I think he was able to write these words because after all was said and done he trusted in the goodness of God. He trusted that the evil that had caused tragedy in his life was not the last word but that the hope of the resurrection held that privilege. People had reminded him of this, sat with him in his grief, and prayed for his peace. Horatio Spafford ended up leaving business and eventually moving Jerusalem where he and his wife founded a community that served the poor. I don’t hold Horatio Spafford up to make you feel bad or inferior. I tell you his story because it reminds us that God’s grace can break through even into the darkest circumstances. God’s grace can give us courage to live. God’s grace can so fill our hearts that we can not but help to share it with others. My hope is that we are and will be made more and more into a community that embodies that grace to one another so that even in the midst of trial we may sing, “It is well with my soul.” In the name of the Father, Son and

Holy Spirit. Amen.