Participants:
Series Code: RQRA
Program Code: RQRA000002A
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00:01 I don't understand
00:04 why did this have to happen to me? 00:08 I feel like I just can't make sense of things. 00:12 I need answers. 00:15 Where is God? 00:20 Hello and welcome to Raw Questions Relevant Answers, 00:23 a program that young people 00:25 are able to send their questions to, 00:27 and we just walk through them 00:29 as young people dealing with a heavy, 00:31 hot topics for our demographic. 00:33 Today, we are dealing with the program 00:35 on the topic of suffering 00:36 and where is God in the midst of suffering? 00:38 I got two awesome co-hosts with me, 00:40 Mark Paden and Michelle Doucoumes. 00:43 And so, I guess let's just go ahead and start right away 00:45 'cause time is of the essence. 00:47 So our first question is from a 15-year-old in Tennessee, 00:51 15-year-old female, this is what she says. 00:53 This is a raw question. 00:55 She says, "Help me please to understand where God 00:57 is when I'm crying and alone 00:59 and when I'm ready to take my own life 01:01 because I've been on this road so long and it's awful. 01:05 The path to heaven is a fiery hell." 01:09 Wow. 01:10 You know, first, I just want to say that 01:15 that is incredible bold to share that kind of question. 01:19 And I just want to say to whoever you are, 01:21 you're valuable. 01:23 Your life is incredibly valuable. 01:25 I don't... 01:27 There's no reason for anybody to need to take their life. 01:31 God has given each of us incredible talents and gifts 01:34 and love from Him that, you know... 01:37 You're valuable, you're worth something. 01:41 But I want to sort of unpack this question 01:43 because we need to dive deep into solving the problem 01:48 so that we don't have to feel this way, right? 01:52 The first thing that I want to say... 01:53 And the first part of that question 01:56 is where is God in the midst of all this when I'm hurting, 01:59 when I'm in pain? 02:00 I just don't understand like, why isn't God helping me? 02:04 The first thing I want to do is bring us to the Book of Psalms. 02:06 If you're struggling, 02:08 go to the Book of Psalms and the Isaiah 40s. 02:10 Those are pure gold. 02:12 But this first one, Psalm 55, starting in verse 1, 02:17 "Give ear to my prayer, O God, 02:20 and hide not thyself from my supplication. 02:23 Attend unto me and hear me, 02:25 I mourn in my complaint and make a noise." 02:28 This is in the old English, but you get what he is saying. 02:31 He's crying out to God, essentially saying, 02:34 "God, where are you?" 02:35 You know, "Hear my prayer, don't hide Yourself 02:38 from what I'm asking You." 02:40 So first of all, recognize that... 02:42 Okay, who was David? 02:43 This was a pretty intense dude, right? 02:45 Yeah. 02:46 I mean, he goes out like Saul wants him 02:49 to kill 100 Philistines, he kills 200, right? 02:53 Just like he's an intense dude, and yet here's his prayer. 02:59 "God, where are you? I'm in pain. 03:01 Where are you?" 03:02 So don't feel like if you're going through this, 03:04 and if you're asking these questions 03:06 and you're wondering where God is, 03:08 you're not some terrible person. 03:10 It's not like you're going through something 03:11 that nobody else has ever gone through. 03:13 There is hope. 03:15 Another passage that I really want us to look to, 03:18 and I think this is where we can start 03:19 to come into our answer is Psalm 77. 03:22 Again, it starts out by saying, 03:25 "I cried unto God with my voice," verse 1, 03:27 "even unto God with my voice, and He gave ear unto me." 03:31 This is the first thing, God does give ear unto us. 03:34 Keep your fingers there, 03:36 but we're going to switch over to Psalm 139 really quick, 03:37 and the question, 03:39 "Where is God when I'm hurting?" 03:40 Well, this is actually where He is. 03:44 Psalm 139, "O Lord, You have searched me and known me. 03:48 You know my down sitting and my uprising..." 03:50 You know, when I sit down and when I stand up. 03:52 "You understand my thought from afar, 03:56 You are hedging me behind and before 03:59 and are acquainted with all my ways." 04:01 You see, where is God when we're hurting? 04:04 He's right there in the middle of it with us, 04:05 He is understanding our thought. 04:07 You know, that thought that's in your mind 04:08 that you can't understand, 04:10 that's bugging you, that's paining you, 04:11 you don't know how to deal with it, God understands that. 04:14 And he is not just absently afar off, He understands. 04:19 But the beauty of this Psalm 77 04:21 and where we start to get into the answer is Asaph 04:25 is the one who wrote this psalm, 04:27 he starts off, "He's in the day of my trouble, 04:29 I sought the Lord. 04:31 My soul ran in the night, 04:33 my soul refused to be comforted," right? 04:34 He's in this intensity and depression and darkness. 04:38 And then he gets to this point, and he realizes, 04:42 verse 10, "And I said, 'This is my infirmity, 04:45 but I will remember the years 04:47 of the right hand of the Most High. 04:49 I will remember the works of the Lord. 04:52 Surely I will remember Your wonders of old. 04:55 I will meditate also of all Your work 04:57 and talk of Your doings.'" 04:58 So in the midst of this, we can call it depression, 05:01 I think that he is in, he is recognizing, 05:04 "Wait, I need to take my eyes off of this junk 05:07 that's going on and fix my eyes higher." 05:10 Instead of looking at all the bad situations, 05:13 the misery that I'm in, 05:15 I'm going to remember the years of the Most High God. 05:18 I'm going to remember that He is infinite, 05:19 that He has power, 05:20 that He understands my thought from afar off. 05:22 He knows me, He is intimately connected with me, 05:25 and though I can't understand this right now, 05:27 and though I can't figure it out right now, that's okay. 05:31 I can simply rest in Jesus as my Savior. 05:34 I can rest in His arms and know that He is there for me. 05:39 That's huge, Mark. 05:40 And, you know, during these times, 05:43 it really can be hard to see what God is doing 05:47 and to see that light, the darkness comes in, 05:50 but, you know, Jesus talks about this. 05:54 In John 10:10, He says, 05:56 "The thief does not come except to steal, 05:59 to kill, and to destroy." 06:02 Maybe you're out there feeling like that like 06:03 that's what has happened to me. 06:05 Things have been stolen from me, my life is ruin, 06:08 things are bad, but it doesn't stop there, 06:10 thankfully, Jesus continues His verse, 06:12 He says, "I have come that they may have life, 06:16 and that they may have it more abundantly." 06:20 That's sort of huge thing is that no matter 06:22 what's been stolen from you and what has happened, 06:26 that there is a God who still says, "There's hope. 06:29 There's something better." 06:30 It's not just a hell all the way 06:33 until the end of life. 06:34 He says, "I want you to have life more abundantly." 06:36 And He continues it, verse 11, "I am the good shepherd. 06:40 The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep." 06:44 And that's the way that this happens, you know. 06:47 It's a hard question to answer. 06:49 Jesus disciples asked Him 06:51 about the things happening in the world. 06:53 And it's interesting Jesus 06:54 tells a parable of wheat and tares, 06:57 and how these tares grow up. 06:59 And they ask, you know, "What happens here?" 07:01 And in the story, Jesus says to, 07:03 Matthew 13:28, "An enemy has done this." 07:07 We have an enemy, and that's huge to realize. 07:10 It wasn't God's plan for those things to happen. 07:12 We have an enemy who's planted all that nasty junk 07:15 you're going through, but Jesus still says, 07:17 "There is an abundant life available." 07:20 And it is because He gives His life for the sheep. 07:23 There's this promise in Old Testament where it says 07:26 that God will restore where the locust had eaten and taken. 07:29 That even we've had a situation 07:31 where an outsider has come and violated, 07:34 and robbed, and stolen, 07:35 that He is able to restore 07:37 those lost years and bring good. 07:40 You think of the experience of Job 07:42 that we're told at the end of his life, 07:43 his story was transformed when he prayed for his friends, 07:46 but also told that he received double 07:48 what he had before 07:50 than what he had at the first time around. 07:52 And I think it's amazing 07:53 that even though he went through this hardship, 07:55 God was with him every step of the way, 07:57 and that God silenced his accusers for him. 08:00 He didn't have to do it himself. 08:02 And lastly, the God gave him an abundance 08:04 at the end of what he went through. 08:06 I want to have a follow-up question 08:08 which continues our discourse, 08:09 and I want to throw in another principle here. 08:11 I also want to throw in one more practical thing. 08:12 Yeah, yeah, so we will in a moment. 08:14 "So how can I serve a God, they say, 08:16 that allows hurt and pain to happen 08:17 to innocent children?" 08:19 This is a 16-year-old from Maryland, 08:21 16-year-old female. 08:22 The other principle I want to address here 08:24 is that sometimes we think that when bad things 08:27 are happening in the world, 08:28 did you know a way which we deal with this topic 08:30 of the great controversy or theodicy, 08:32 an explanation for the existence of evil. 08:34 Most times it's that it wasn't God's fault when it started, 08:37 and that God's going to put an end to it. 08:39 But there is this middle ground that we really wrestle with 08:42 that I wish we would address more. 08:44 One of the things that Jesus talks about in John 16 08:47 when talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit 08:49 is that He is going to convict the world, 08:51 not just religious people. 08:52 He's going to convict the world of sin, 08:54 of righteousness in judgment. 08:56 We see it throughout the Old Testament 08:58 and the New Testament, 08:59 a God who is pursuing, pursuing, pursuing 09:02 and trying to put an end to nonsense in people's lives, 09:05 convicting them, saying why, He says, 09:07 "I had no pleasure in the death of the wicked," 09:08 for instance, in Ezekiel 33:11, I think. 09:11 He says, "I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, 09:13 but that the wicked turn from his ways," 09:15 and He says, "turn, turn from your evil ways, 09:17 for why should you die, O house of Israel?" 09:20 That same appeal is being made to every violator, 09:23 to every perpetrator, to every abuser, 09:26 to every person who is being used 09:27 to propagate evil on this planet, 09:30 the Spirit of God is striving with those souls 09:32 to cease and desist and respond to the cross. 09:36 And I think we cannot overlook that even in the midst of chaos 09:39 and horrible things in the world, 09:41 there's a God in heaven 09:42 who is tenaciously pursuing each individual's soul 09:46 to respond to be saved. 09:48 Because in Matthew 25:41, He says, "Depart from Me, 09:51 you cursed, in the everlasting fire 09:52 prepared for the devil and his angels." 09:55 Humanity is not on that list. 09:57 God doesn't want any to be lost, 09:58 He's striving with all to be saved. 10:00 And He's trying to get them to change their mind 10:02 while giving them freedom to make their own choice. 10:04 So I just want to make sure 10:05 that middle ground is covered in the sense. 10:08 You have another... 10:09 Oh, go ahead, Michelle. No. 10:11 And it's huge, 10:13 because there's a lot of those three phases. 10:16 There's the idea, first of all, 10:17 of realizing that God did not create evil, 10:20 God did not even create a devil. 10:22 God created a good being, Lucifer, 10:26 who when we look through things like Ezekiel 28, 10:28 we find out how that corruption started 10:31 and what happened with that. 10:33 And then in Revelation 12, 10:35 the battle that was in heaven of God 10:37 not even wanting to give Him up 10:38 but having to do that. 10:40 And then looking at the history of our earth, 10:44 of Adam and Eve, the choices that they made, 10:46 and how much God for the value or the power of choice 10:50 was willing to let some crazy things to happen 10:54 that are hard for us to understand. 10:56 But first of all, realizing that was never God's plan. 11:00 God in the middle of that 11:01 is still wanting as much redemption of people 11:05 as He can possibly achieve. 11:08 And that it's also important 11:10 to know that there will be an end, 11:12 that there will be justice. 11:14 That God cares about mercy, 11:16 but He is not okay with bad things happening to children. 11:19 That was the one thing that made Jesus very angry 11:22 when He talked about little children being abused 11:24 and things happening, 11:26 He said, "It'd be better for a millstone 11:27 to be hung around someone's neck." 11:30 If you think about it, we're in the middle of a war, 11:34 and sometimes in a war, 11:35 there are casualties that are innocent people. 11:38 And so, no, it wasn't those kids' fault. 11:41 God never wants us to believe that maybe the babies 11:43 weren't important or that something wrong happened, 11:46 but we are in a war where God is still with us, 11:49 and thankfully, there is an end also. 11:52 You know, one other thing too 11:53 that I think is important in this whole discussion, 11:57 we're not going to always understand everything. 12:02 I want to. Right, exactly. 12:03 And that's the natural human tendency 12:06 is that when something bad happens, 12:07 when these things go on, we want to figure it out, 12:10 we want to have a satisfying solution, answers, 12:13 so that we know, 12:15 but one thing that we have to recognize 12:17 is that there are going to be some things in life 12:20 that we may not find a fully satisfactory answer towards. 12:25 And in those moments, we have to trust the heart of God. 12:27 God has revealed so much in His Word of His love for us 12:31 and has proved it in so many ways, through Him, 12:33 dying on the cross, that's no joke. 12:36 He didn't just hurt for a little bit, 12:38 He went through a ton to save us. 12:40 And in those times when we just don't understand, 12:44 we need to trust the heart of Christ. 12:46 One other practical thing too 12:48 that I just want to mention on the previous question, 12:50 just because I think 12:51 it's so important is that we need to come to a place 12:54 when we're wrestling with those thoughts in our mind, 12:56 those destructive thoughts about, "Oh, and this, 12:59 God doesn't hear, He doesn't care about me." 13:01 We need to readdress those with truth. 13:04 So we need to be intentional about saying, 13:07 "Okay, when I'm having this thought, no, that's a lie. 13:10 I need to do with this. 13:12 I need to replace that with this thought." 13:14 Well, it talks about taking every thought captive 13:16 to the obedience of Christ, 13:17 like bringing those thoughts that aren't in harmony 13:20 with the Word of God to Jesus to transform, 13:22 and rearrange our system of truth 13:25 internally and experientially. 13:28 I just want to kind of close with an appeal for those 13:30 who may be just wrestling with this whole process, 13:33 know that there's a God in heaven who hates pain, 13:35 who is willing to go through your pain 13:38 and the consequences of all abuse, 13:40 of all harm to ensure that all could be saved. 13:44 He wants all to be saved, 13:45 He does what it takes for all to be saved, 13:47 and God Himself hurts in the midst of this conflict 13:51 because not all will receive salvation. 13:54 You have a God who is acquainted with your sorrow, 13:56 who has suffered in your stead, 13:58 and who has promised 13:59 that He would put an end to all of our pain, 14:00 and we're told in Revelation 21, 14:02 "He even wipe the tears from our eyes 14:05 when it's all said and done," 14:06 and He's coming to bring us home. 14:08 Thank you again for joining us, 14:09 and we look forward to seeing you on our next program 14:11 on Raw Questions Relevant Answers. |
Revised 2018-07-16