Nate and I sat in front of a panel of doctors at a Chicago hospital and heard the words “terminal cancer,” but didn’t take it in.
That’s probably a typical response to a deadly diagnosis. It’s an acquaintance none of us want to make, so our minds rebuff it. Days later, the words and their meaning sink in, and because there’s no other choice, we accept our challenge and try our best. But while we’re suffering, our questions pile up. God answers some, but for the most part, he doesn’t give us a satisfying understanding.
A parallel situation occurs as we parent our children. We try to be mini-versions of God, raising them with what wisdom we have, trying to imitate the way he wisely raises us. Part of that is taking kids to the doctor for regular well-care. When we hold them down for a vaccination, we allow such “abuse” for only one reason: it brings benefit to them. But can they understand that? Of course not.
They cry and kick, trying to get away, but we force the issue, knowing the importance of protecting them from deadly diseases. We have valid reasons, but they don’t understand them. Children live in the “now” which during a vaccination hurts a great deal.
As adults we ought not to live in the “now”, but we often do. Harsh circumstances come and we demand that God explain himself. “How could you? Don’t you love us? Why didn’t you stop this?” As the diagnosis comes, the accident happens, the heartbreak occurs, we cry and kick to get away, because we can’t understand the reasons for it.
But God definitely has his reasons. He could explain himself, but just like a parent in the pediatrician’s office, if he did, we wouldn’t hear him. I’ve actually tried explaining the needles to my children as they’ve seen them coming: “It’ll feel bad now, but later you won’t get the measles!” Not one of them accepted my reasons for their agony. They just screamed louder, drowning out my explanation.
If God sat us down and shared his reasons for letting cancer or any other tragedy come to us, just like a child in the doctor’s office, his explanation would go unheard. It wouldn’t lessen the misery of the moment, so it wouldn’t satisfy us. We’d just drown it out with our objections.
And so he doesn’t explain, at least not while we’re in crisis mode. Later, usually much later, he offers bits of his reasoning. Then, depending on our response, he might offer more. One truth ribboned throughout Scripture is that if we take one step toward him, he takes one-thousand toward us.
Like Moses in front of the burning bush that wasn’t consumed, when he turned toward it looking for an answer to what he couldn’t understand, then God spoke to him.
It’s difficult to find peace within pain. But God’s message to us is, “Look at me, and you’ll hear from me.”
“When the Lord saw that [Moses] turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush.” (Exodus 3:4)
