I have no sophisticated answer. I have no justification for the way God created the world. I can’t tell anyone to trust God because I’ve made sense of the world or because there is a reason for everything that will emerge over time. There may be, but I don’t know what those reasons are.
At root, I trust God because of Jesus.
I may not know the reasons God has or doesn’t have, but Jesus gives me a reason to trust God. In Jesus, God has a track record I can trust.
I trust because, in Jesus, God suffered with us as one of us. God empathizes with us as one who knows suffering from the inside rather than a distant observer. God shares our suffering with us. I trust because God suffered with me.
I trust because, in Jesus, God opened a window into the kind of world for which God yearns. We see in Jesus how God ministers to and loves sufferers. We see God’s loyalty to the sufferer in the ministry of Jesus. This is the heart of God. I trust because God has loved me in Jesus.
I trust because, in Jesus, God revealed the future. God raised Jesus from the dead. This is the promise of our own future. In the end, death will not win. I trust because God has already won.
Even though I have no insight into God’s rationales, I trust God in the midst of suffering.
Jesus trusted in the midst of suffering.
He lamented, to be sure:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And he trusted, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Lament and trust. They are not opposites. On the contrary, both are part of the life of faith, and Jesus modeled that for us.
Learn more from John Mark Hicks about how to trust God in the midst of grief, suffering, and loss by looking at his book Anchors for the Soul.
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