Pastors get asked a lot of questions...

Pastors get asked a lot of questions—everything from “What will heaven be like?” to “Which version of the Bible do you recommend?”  But without a doubt, the single most challenging question that pastors get asked is “How can a loving, all-powerful God permit suffering and injustice?”

It is a significant question, and those who hastily provide a glib or clichéd answer obviously haven’t spent enough time wrestling with it.  The most honest answer, of course, is that we simply do not know.  God’s ways are not our ways, and God’s thoughts are not our thoughts.  Moreover, God is under no obligation whatsoever to offer us a justification, or even an explanation!

In light of this, it seems to me that we really only have two choices.  We can continue to believe in God (despite the fact that God’s actions—or inaction—will, ultimately, remain incomprehensible to us), or we can give up on God entirely and conclude that the Almighty is either dead, irrelevant, inattentive, or uninvolved.

Personally, I find instruction in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  As you may recall, these three brothers incur the wrath of King Nebuchadnezzar because they refuse to bow down and worship an idol of gold that he had constructed.  As a result of their refusal, Nebuchadnezzar threatens to throw them all into a blazing fiery furnace.  Their response is one of the most inspiring passages in Scripture.

“We know that our God is able to rescue us from your hand,” they tell the king.  “But even if God does not, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up!”

What courage these young men demonstrate in the face of evil and death!  What conviction!  What confidence!  “God can save us, no doubt about it,” they cry out, “but even if God chooses not to, we will serve God anyway.”

If you ask me, this is faith in its purest form, because it points to a belief in God that is not result oriented.  We do not believe in God simply on the basis that God blesses us, or guides us, or rescues us in our hour of need.  True faith teaches us to believe in God no matter what.  Even if God, for whatever reason, decides not to rescue us in our hour of need, we will still have faith in God, because God alone is the One who created us and who completes us.

There is one additional note of encouragement in the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  When King Nebuchadnezzar looks into the blazing fiery furnace, he notices four men instead of three, and the fourth one looks like the “Son of God.”  Traditionally, we have come to regard this fourth man as Christ—which means that, regardless of whether Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be rescued or not, they aren’t going through their fiery ordeal alone!