{"id":4563,"date":"2025-04-18T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2025-04-18T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4563"},"modified":"2025-04-18T08:00:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-18T12:00:54","slug":"god-on-the-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/18\/god-on-the-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"God on the Hook"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

There is no more exasperating and wrenching human reality than suffering.

It\u2019s safe to say that \u201cthe problem of pain\u201d has historically been the number one obstacle to trusting God.\u00a0

Theologian John Stott put it this way:\u00a0\u201cThe fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and has been in every generation.\u00a0Its distribution and degree appear to be entirely random and therefore unfair.\u00a0Sensitive spirits ask if it can possibly be reconciled with God\u2019s justice and love.\u201d

Is it possible to get God off the hook?

Here\u2019s a collection of quotes \u2013 beginning with skeptics and moving toward people who have bet their lives that God\u2019s existence and the world\u2019s pain are not irreconcilable.\u00a0

\u201cSuffering is fatal to Christianity\u201d <\/em>(Philosopher John Stuart Mill).

\u201cIf God exists, then he is the devil\u201d <\/em>(Poet Charles Baudelaire).

\u201cThe only excuse for God is that he doesn\u2019t exist<\/em>\u201d (Author Marie-Henri Beyle Stendhal).

The universe has \u201cprecisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference\u201d <\/em>(Biologist and \u201cNew Atheist\u201d Richard Dawkins).

\u201cIf God were small enough to be understood, he wouldn\u2019t be big enough to be worshipped\u201d<\/em> (Catholic mystic Eveyln Underhill).

\u201cGod is not nice.\u00a0God is not an uncle.\u00a0God is an earthquake\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(Rabbi Abraham Heschel).

\u201cIf you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn\u2019t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can\u2019t know.\u00a0Indeed, you can\u2019t have it both ways\u201d <\/em>(Author and pastor Timothy Keller).

\u201cThe only effective antidote to the wickedness around us is to live differently from this moment on\u201d <\/em>(Archbishop of Philadelphia Charles Chaput, concerning the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings).

\u201cThe Lord never seems to get there when you want him, but when he arrives he\u2019s always right on time\u201d<\/em> (Essayist and social critic James Baldwin).

\u201cGod whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world\u201d <\/em>(Theologian C.S. Lewis).
\u201cYou meant it for evil, but God meant it for good\u201d <\/em>(Joseph, son of Jacob: Genesis 50:20).

\u201cIs everything sad going to come untrue?\u201d <\/em>(Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>).

It may seem incredible, but the Bible never presents what one might call \u201cthe answer\u201d to the problem of suffering.\u00a0We encounter instead the Answerer:\u00a0Jesus addresses pain and evil by taking it upon himself.

So, is it possible to get God off the hook? It\u2019s clear that God has never had the least intention of cooperating with such a project.

Instead, God\u2019s mysterious and unexpected answer to suffering is to put himself on the hook<\/em> \u2013 on the cross, that is.\u00a0

What does Jesus do about our suffering? He shares it. \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d he screams (Matthew 27:46).

Tim Keller points out that as Jesus is dying he doesn\u2019t scream, \u201cMy friends, my friends,\u201d or \u201cMy head, my head.\u201d He shouts, \u201cMy God, my God!\u201d This is the language of intimacy. Think of the way we might say, \u201cThat\u2019s my<\/em> Jennifer,\u201d or \u201cThat\u2019s my <\/em>boy.\u201d\u00a0

Keller writes: \u201cIf after a service some Sunday morning one of the members of my church comes to me and says, \u2018I never want to see you or talk to you again,\u2019 I will feel pretty bad. But if today my wife comes up to me and says, \u2018I never want to see you or talk to you again,\u2019 that\u2019s [overwhelmingly] worse. The longer the love, the deeper the love, the greater the torment of loss.\u201d

Think about the fact that \u201cthis forsakenness, this loss, was between the Father and the Son, who had loved each other from all eternity. This love was infinitely long, absolutely perfect, and Jesus was losing it\u2026 Jesus, the Maker of the world, was being unmade. Why? Jesus was experiencing our judgment day.\u201d\u00a0

A special word was even coined to express such pain. It\u2019s \u201cexcruciating\u201d \u2013 which literally means, \u201cout of the cross.\u201d\u00a0

It\u2019s hard to fathom how or why the true King, if he really were at the heart of God\u2019s will, could ever suffer like this.

Here\u2019s what we know: If you have ever felt utterly abandoned; if you\u2019ve been betrayed by someone who once promised you, \u201cI will love you forever;\u201d if you\u2019ve been cut off from the health and the hope that used to sustain you \u2013 then you can know that the Savior to whom you are entrusting yourself this morning actually knows how you feel.\u00a0

And he alone knows how to heal and save you.

May God bless you richly on this weekend in which his love, his sacrifice, and his victory over Death are deservedly on center stage.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here There is no more exasperating and wrenching human reality than suffering. It\u2019s safe to say that \u201cthe problem of pain\u201d has historically been the number one obstacle to trusting God.\u00a0 Theologian John Stott put it this way:\u00a0\u201cThe fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[147,112,501],"class_list":["post-4563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-good-friday","tag-suffering","tag-theodicy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4565,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4563\/revisions\/4565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}