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Last Updated: Dec 12, 2008 - 4:54:39 PM |
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She was a newborn infant lying in Intensive Care at the University of Missouri Hospital. A few days after her birth the doctors noticed that something was terribly wrong. Her heart would race without slowing down. I sat by her hospital crib watching the heart monitor with its three hundred beats per minute. The doctor said he had twelve hours to slow down her heart. If he couldn’t, she faced cardiac arrest. My wife and I were devastated. We could do nothing except watch and cry. I prayed to God, but my prayers seemed to go no where. This didn’t make any sense. I began to wonder how God could allow this child to come into the world with such a massive problem. I even wondered if God was punishing her for something I’d done. Calm on the outside, I was having a ‘knock-down-drag-out-fight’ with God on the inside.
What makes this unique was that I was a pastor with one year of ministry under my belt. Thus, I’d been dealing with people who were suffering. Yet, now, it was my child who was suffering. Now, I was angry and confused. Now, I experienced something many of my parishioners had already experienced. I found that when we suffer, it is easy to question God and to wonder if he makes any sense.
The life we live is filled with many problems. There is no guarantee – not even for Christians - that life will run smoothly, or that hurts and heartaches will never touch us. And, anyone who tells you that the ‘victorious Christian life’ is free from pain and suffering is not speaking the truth.
On the other hand, the God whom we often question in our suffering is the God who knows what we are going through, because he has been there himself. The Bible tells us that God became one of us in the person of Christ. We call this the ‘Incarnation.’ He, who is immortal and above suffering, became vulnerable to both suffering and death in Christ. Thus, God knows what you and I are going through because in Christ he has been there.
When God seems to make no sense, I go to back to what he became for me in Christ. I go back to what he went through for me in Christ. My sin had separated me from God. So, God came for me in Christ. In Christ he took my sin upon himself. In Christ he brought me the forgiveness of sins. All this he did because he loved me. Over the years I’ve learned that the only God who makes sense to me in my suffering, is the God who came in the Christ who suffered and died for me. Knowing this doesn’t take away the pain or suffering. However, it gives me hope. Christ’s suffering brought me forgiveness. Now, God promises his forgiven people a new heaven and new earth in which there is no pain or suffering.
The medicine the doctor gave her finally ‘clicked in’ for my daughter. However, since then I’ve learned to deal with other types of pain and suffering. In these times, the temptation is to question God and wonder if he makes any sense. Yet, I know that even in these times I can hold on to him and trust him. You see, I know what God has become for me in Christ. I know what he has done for me in Christ. In Christ God makes all the sense in the world to me. He can also for you.
Pastor Douglas Morton is pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, Marengo. His email is pastor@forgiveninchrist.com.
© Copyright 2008 by The East Iowa Herald
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