Don't Waste Chase's Life # 1

We will waste Chase’s life if we do not believe that our suffering is designed by God for our good and His glory.

How can this be? How can this horrible reality be for our good and for God’s glory? We must confess that we have asked this question many times throughout these past 9 months. We would both say that we believe with all of our hearts that God is sovereign over everything, but when tragedy knocked on our door new questions began to emerge in our hearts. It was one thing to say we believe this in the midst of our easy, suffering-free life, but it was another to believe this with all of our hearts in the midst of unimaginable tragedy.

Some believe and have said that God could not have willed this to happen – He just permitted it. Though I understand their logic I believe they are wrong, and it has brought us no comfort. What God allows, He allows intentionally. And this intentionality is His design. God could have formed and knitted Chases’ head differently (Psalm 139.13), but He has willed not to. He has willed not to because this is His design. It is His design so that all things, including suffering work out for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8.28).

God was not strong-armed into submission by some other force outside of Himself to allow this, for if this was true than God would cease to be God. God graciously rules over all things, including Satan, and everything that He purposes happens, and nothing but His purposes happen (Isaiah 14.24,27).

Acknowledging and embracing this truth of God’s gracious rule over all doesn’t mean that we play the “pat Christian” and say all of the “pat” answers while we drown in confusion, anger, and self-pity. It isn’t meant to lead to stoicism or dishonesty. This truth is meant to drive us to God in all of our sorrow and pain. It’s meant to lead us to affirm all that we know to be true about God from His Word, lay everything that we are facing on the table, plead for God’s help in our time of need and then emerge standing firm on Biblical convictions regardless of how we feel. God welcomes His children in all of their suffering, pain, and confusion, He doesn’t avoid them. For it was His design that these trials and afflictions would lead us to rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead (2 Corinthians 1.9) and in whose presence is the fullness of joy and pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16.11). If we do not believe that this momentary affliction is designed by God for our good and His glory we will waste Chase's life.