Notes from Week Four - Heartlessness

Notes from Week Four: When Bad Things Happen

What follows are a few items from the video, the Leader's Guide, or the Participant Guide that moved me:

MAIN IDEA: If we want to get it right when it comes to how we speak and act in times of suffering, we need to carefully consider what we believe about how God works in the world and seek to be the hands, feet, and voice of Jesus to those who are suffering.

Opening Prayer:
Lord, life can be so hard at times.  Suffering is part of the human experience because we live in a fallen, imperfect world.  Like everyone who has come before us, we struggle to make sense of it all; and sometimes in our effort to make sense of it, we wind up saying and doing things that hurt others.  Help us to sort through our questions, to question our assumptions, and to examine our beliefs carefully.  Remind us that we do not have all the answers and never will, and that the most important question is not "Why?" but "What now?"  We are comforted by the fact that you are familiar with our pain, that you are present with us through it , and that you promise to bring good from it.  Teach us to share the comfort we have received from you with others, reaching out with compassion to be your hands, feet, and voice in a hurting world.  Amen.


Key Insights

• Some of the long and commonly held assumptions about God's involvement in the affairs of our world - the things Christians sometimes say in the face of suffering and even blessing - not only may be wrong, but also may serve to push people away from God.
• God's involvement in the world and in our lives is called providence.  What we believe about providence determines how we respond when bad things happen.
• Nearly all Christians agree that God is sovereign - the highest authority or supreme ruler - yet some also claim that God is actually controlling every dimension of the creation.  This view is sometimes referred to as the marionette view of divine providence.  The Bible seems to teach the opposite of this view.
• Whatever we say about God or attribute to God must line up with God's character as revealed in the Scriptures.  The character of God revealed through the Scriptures is that of a kind, loving, and merciful Father - not a monster.
• Much of what we blame God for is the result of humanity's sin and the realities of an imperfect world - such as sickness, disease, natural disasters, accidents, violence, and death.  God accepts the realities, but God does not initiate them.
• Typically God does not answer our prayers by intervening supernaturally, yet God can and sometimes does intervene in miraculous ways.
• God does not cause bad things to happen, but when they do happen, God uses them to work for our good.  God uses the difficult and tragic experiences of our lives to grow us and make us more like Christ.
• When it comes to the problem of suffering, we must allow room for mystery, knowing that there is much we do not know and cannot understand.
• The church, the body of Christ, should be made up of people filled with compassion who carry one another through the difficult times.  We are to be the hands, feet, and voice of Christ to those who are hurting.

A statement that gave us chill bumps once we put it together: "God doesn't interfere; he intervenes."