Psalm 90:15: Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Pastor Tim Keller, in his sermon on Psalm 88, perhaps the bleakest chapter in scripture, said that even that psalm “whispers God’s grace” to us. Otherwise, apart from grace, why would God—in his “living and abiding word” (1 Peter 1:25) no less—risk having his character impugned like this?
Psalm 90, meanwhile, is only slightly more hopeful: the psalmist (Moses, in this case) at least hopes that something good awaits him and his people on the other side of their suffering. But I appreciate the psalm’s candor: “You, God, have afflicted us; you, Lord, are responsible for the evil that has come our way.”
Many of us modern-day Christians are so anxious to protect God’s character (“My God would never cause suffering!”) that we end up impugning his power: “By all means, God hates that this is happening to you, but what can he do about it?” A few pastors and theologians appeal to Satan and spiritual warfare, as if that solves the problem: “The devil causes suffering, not God.” (Yes, but, who created the devil and permits him to have power over us?)
No, the Bible affirms this difficult truth: When God afflicts us, he does so for our good—indeed, for our ultimate happiness. Besides, if this is true, at least you’ll know who to blame!
I like the way C.S. Lewis, with typical English understatement, puts it: “If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it’s not so bad.”[1]
1. C.S. Lewis, “Money Trouble” in The C.S. Lewis Bible, NRSV (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 1123.
Thank you for sharing this. As a fellow Methodist, it seems this is most pertinent in these turbulent times of our denomination. It saddens me, yet makes me hopeful that we must keep our eyes on Christ to bring us through.
Indeed. Thanks!