Have you ever noticed that when things go the way we want it, it’s God’s will, and when things don’t go as we want, then all of a sudden it’s not God’s will? As I write this I have had two episodes of throwing up in the last twenty-four hours, due to pain, and my wife’s childhood, and even adulthood, has been mostly abuse. Does this mean it’s God’s will? If it is God’s will, does that mean He wanted it? I ended up having to take a break for about thirty-six hours.
If we look at the book of Job we can see that a whole set of calamities befall Job, and with God’s knowledge and approval. Now let’s be clear, that doesn’t mean he wanted it to go that way. In the life of Joseph, we see a whole host of wrongs, but we also see Joseph recognizing God’s providence in it in Gen 50:20 where he says “you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good”. We see how that Joseph reflects back on all the abuse he’d been put through and how he recognized it as God setting him up for what was to come, and eventually saving not just his own family, but the entire region.
Rom 8:28 is quoted often when calamities strike people. To be honest, I think it’s become a bit cliche. Romans 8:28 cross references to Romans 9:11, which is talking about Jacob and Esau, before they were born. See? The context is about who is Israel. Not just some nice cliche to throw around whenever something bad happens.
I remember when hurricane Katrina hit and how some were using this verse. I also remember how some were claiming that it was God’s judgement, and how appalled some were that some could be so insensitive. I remember when an EF5 tornado hit Joplin. Since I worked in a call center at the time, I didn’t know anyone face to face from Joplin, but there were people from Joplin that I interacted with, that I knew, who were impacted by the tornado. Again, some used Rom 8:28 to comfort. I don’t recall people saying it was God’s judgement, but I’m sure there were.
I’ve had nearly twenty years to study and reflect on this. I want to be careful here, because I want to convey the right thing and not stir the pot. See, early in my marriage my wife told me of church goers who had told her that the reason that this stuff, the abuse, was happening to her, was because it was God’s judgement on her. I thought that that was an absolutely cruel thing for them to say. However, it got me thinking about this very subject. It was easy for me to say that it wasn’t God’s judgement on a little girl. That was just common sense. But yet, if God is all knowing, if he is outside space-time, then he knew this was coming. Similar to Job and Joseph. See? God may not have wanted it to happen, but he was able to take the bad things that happened and turn them for eventual good. In Joseph’s life, it took years. You have the years where he was sold into slavery, and then he was exalted in that position, and then thrown into prison, and then exalted while being a prisoner, and then finally he is freed from prison to interpret pharaoh’s dream, which lead to Joseph being the second highest in the land. Only pharaoh was above Joseph. Some might have looked at what was happening to Joseph and thought that God was judging him. They certainly did with Job. Job’s friends thought Job had sinned, which is why he was being punished. They couldn’t see that in reality the reason things were happening to him was because of how much Job shined.
Now there are times in which God does judge a person or a place. Things like Sodom and Gomorrah come to mind, but those aren’t the only ones. Nineveh comes to mind. While they did repent and judgement was stayed, four hundred years later, if memory serves, they were destroyed.
See? I think we to quickly think it’s judgement or Rom 8:28. We fail to see the other possibilities. Perhaps they are like Job, enduring hardship because of how bright they’ll shine. Or maybe disaster is averted because of repentance. We don’t see things as God’s does. We don’t have the ability to step out of time and see the whole of time and how every tiny detail will play out. We don’t even see how our life will play out, let alone single events in our lives. No, it’s only on reflecting back that sometimes we can see, and even then, not always. Some times, things are just to big to be able to see. But we like to offer words anyway. We are so often arrogant in thinking that we see what God sees. We offer words of comfort or words of judgement with out knowing what’s really going on. Even a prophet only knows what God tells him. To many “prophets” today are like the ones of old where they tell the king what he wants to hear. All you have to do is Google for a little bit and you can see all kinds of positive “prophecies”. Maybe you think that if it comes true then it’s a true prophet. That’s one test, yes. There is another, one that is rarely used in these days, and that’s Deut 13:1-5. In which it essentially states that if the prophet does all these signs and wonders, but teaches you another Torah, he doesn’t call you to repentance, he doesn’t call you back to Torah, then he is a false prophet. We need to be a lot more careful with our words. Our words can bring life or death. But we also need to remember humility, that we don’t see the whole picture. We don’t even see the tiny bit that we’re apart of. It’s okay to speak words of comfort, but be careful to make sure they are true. Can you imagine what would have happened if Jonah went to Nineveh and comforted the people?
God sees the whole picture and every tiny detail. When bad things happen, it’s easy to be bitter, but don’t. Take it and learn from it. Walk in humility. God knew that it was going to happen. Does that mean God wanted it to happen? We like to think of God as a loving God, and he is, but he is also a righteous and holy God. We’ve see four sides of God so far, but there is one more and that is that sometimes God disciplines us for our good. It’s easy to want to quote Rom 8:28 to people, but how do we know that God isn’t disciplining them? Could offering words of comfort stifle what God is doing? On the other hand, saying that God is judging someone, or a place, may be something cold and callous and wrong. Yet we open our mouths, and perhaps with the best of intentions speak. When you speak, remember, only God sees the entire picture and knows all the little nuances and how they’ll work out.
In His service
Jonathan Rocker
Torah Rocker 