Egomaniac? (part 2)
Piper’s message brought up another heavy question in me that he didn’t address – he didn’t have time. What about suffering (oppression, injustice, and hate therein) related to glory, worship, and joy? It is the age-old question…Why does our glory-loving, joy-spewing redemptive God allow such intense suffering throughout the globe…throughout history? How could this be a part of glory, worship, and joy? Many of us have wrestled for a long time with this. I certainly don’t have any cut and dried answers, so I’ll pitch at you the best I’ve got.
by Vladm
I know that my friends who have suffered much are the most genuine people I know. Any posing was shattered by suffering. Nonsensical materialism, politics, dogmas, etc. are gone with the wind. They recognize life is too short to play games. Many of them have truly experienced God in the midst of their deepest darkest pain. Brokenness brought them to surrender. Despite, or because of intense grappling with God, they’ve made peace with God. They don’t take God or joy for granted.
This whole idea speaks to the mystery of God… Put bluntly, God’s glory “strategy” is beyond our capacity to grasp. I am convinced that really understanding how suffering nestles into God’s glory, our worship, and joy is an eternal matter. We’ve got to get past our obsessive need to determine what glorifies God and what does not – what is “good” and what is not. Even from our minuscule perspective we’ve seen suffering turn to glory and joy in a month, a year, five, or ten years. Our inability to get our heads or hearts around God’s glory doesn’t mean check out and stop asking why, stop fighting injustice or oppression, or stop wrestling in general. It means we accept suffering as a part of the human condition…and fight like mad to trust and worship God despite it. We look for God and God’s glory in the midst of the suffering we see or experience…and stay open for an absurd outcome – joy.
Surrender is essential. In a very real sense, surrender is worship, Surrender is letting go of our human-centered God-centeredness and entering God-centered God-centeredness. We release the illusion of control and put down the (ink-less) pen we’ve been using to write our own story. In doing so, we make room for God-given joy.
We are all part of God’s grand narrative. Our human lives are but a short meaningful paragraph in the story. I can know that no matter what I see, hear, or suffer, it all mysteriously envelops into God’s glory now and forever. Real joy doesn’t come from us being a big somebody who doesn’t suffer; it comes from worshiping God (whose glory hinged upon his suffering and death) despite what we suffer.