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Illness, Suffering, and Answering Questions about them

 As I mentioned earlier, I have been going through either the flu or COVID. I did not take a COVID test; the ones I had are out of date anyway. I had most of the symptoms except the loss of taste and smell (I have no sense of smell due to Kallman's Syndrome, and I had little appetite but there was taste). But most of the other symptoms are the same as cold or flu anyway. The worst headache of my life, still lingering; cough and nasal blah, chills and heat, and the inability to move without a strong force of will (my description of utter fatigue). Today, Friday, I am a little better, and went out to check my garden for some green beans. The majority of it has shriveled from the heat. 

When I am sick like this I don't feel sorry for myself as much as frustrated by the inability to move, and I often say I am not a good sick person. By that I mean I don't pray my way through it and praise God. I just exist until it passes. When I was working I pushed myself to get back to work and normalcy too fast and had relapses. I do not have that responsibility now as a retiree. Sunday I need to teach a Bible class and Monday watch my granddaughter, who is hot mess. I canceled a responsibility for tomorrow and hope not to be contagious Sunday. 

I do always puzzle over how I got this sickness. It is either from travel to a different part of the country in a plane or from my granddaughter who had some symptoms but far less serious than mine. 

Enough of that. Scrolling through reels on Facebook (I try to keep that to only a few minutes, and my algorithm shows children, dogs, spiritual subjects, and the We Do Not Care lady) Joni Eareckson Tada popped up. I always have to listen to Joni. And this one was superior. 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/693312923062311

I am glad she ended with my current most meaningful verses, Lamentations 3:22-24

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

We tend not to read the rest though. It is about suffering. Jeremiah, faithful, is being punished as part of the unfaithful people of Judah. He is suffering from their punishers and from the punished themselves. A few verses later:

For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32 Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33 For He does not afflict [i]willingly, (Literally, from his heart)
Nor grieve the children of men.
34 To crush under one’s feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
35 To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
36 Or subvert a man in his cause—
The Lord does not approve.

What does God not approve? 34-36--crushing prisoners underfoot, subverting justice, or a man's purpose or case he wants to make. If we, in despair, think God wants our suffering--and I don't consider a cold suffering, by the way--we are mistaken. This is a hard subject to encounter and even harder to explain, since it seems to be the main one we hear today in evangelism: If God is good and love, why is there suffering? Why do children get swept away in a flood or shot down in their classroom?

All suffering is not the same. There is the suffering of individual illness. Sometimes those illnesses are self-inflicted; usually they are not. There is the suffering of victimization; sin creates suffering in war or crime or domestic abuse. There is the suffering of natural disasters, as in the Texas floods or the tsunami in 2004. Pandemics and disease would fit into this category. There is the suffering of mental illness. To say that human sin is the cause for suffering probably doesn't answer the question for everyone or every kind of suffering, especially the natural disasters or disease. We can point to Romans 8 and how the world groans. 

I am not sure an unbeliever's doubtful questions about suffering can be easily assuaged by the "sin" argument and definitely not from the "God has a purpose in it." A purpose in Sandy Hook? Seriously?  Strong believers do not accept those easily, so someone who doesn't even accept Scripture as authoritative probably wouldn't. In Jeremiah's lament (and the whole thing has to be read, really), he seems to be saying:

1. suffering can be really, really bad

2. suffering does call us to question (possibly) our own part in it 

3. We can call on our enemies to be meet God's justice (perhaps)

4.  We must, and are expected to, call out for God's deliverance.  

5. God is not pleased by this suffering, yet he is sovereign.

That last one is a paradox, to say the least. Do we conclude God set up a world where he is not totally in control, or in the moment does not seem to be, but is still sovereign in the long run? Is that possible, or true, or really, just beyond our finitude?

So how do we answer the question of pain to the nonbeliever? One answer is to show that Jesus entered it--I have to say at this point in my life that is the strongest "argument" to me. But we should also point that suffering exists because of sin, and that sin is a much deeper thing than what humans take it for. Adam did not "die" because he ate a piece of fruit. It was rebellion. Sin is not constrained to little bad things we do. Sin is destructive, cruel, self-absorbed, self-exalting, impatient, illogical, merciless. The awfulness of sin is part of the gospel, although we de-emphasize it with discussions of identity and purpose. 

There is no gospel without a doctrine of sin.



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