One of the privileges I’ve had over the years is to minister to ministers. By that I mean, ministry leaders.
· I’ve had one strong, accomplished person break down in tears after a devastating, career-derailing phone call received when they were a guest in our home.
· Another man trembled as he sat at our kitchen table after losing his young, beloved wife and with his generations-old company teetering financially
· Another person raged – and I mean, cursing and venomous toward God -- because of unrelenting, downward-spiraling loss and disappointment after a life of service to that same God.
Among the most heartbreaking was a women’s ministry leader who told me she was at the brink of suicide even years after the tragic death of her teenage child.
Someone outside these situations could point out how each of the first three may have put themselves into situations that emerged in their lives.
But losing a child? How many ways can you lose a child that makes no sense at all? Because of a drunk driver? A gust of wind that pushed a bus of kids on a mission trip into the path of a vehicle? A disease with no genetic explanation? Sometimes worse – a disease that the parents carried?
Why do good servants of God suffer? Why do the innocent suffer?
Are there answers to these questions? Today and next week, I’ll explore some Biblical scenarios to seek understanding.
Today’s podcast will probably be profoundly un-satisfying to those who ponder the same questions and who want cut and dried answers.
But let’s look at this together, face some very hard facts the Bible puts before us, like the very words of Jesus to His beloved ones: “In this world you WILL have trouble.”
Let me know what you think as you listen. Next week’s lesson may help a bit. Stay tuned.
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