Making sense of the chaos...

Fair warning - not the most lighthearted of posts. I'll trade by keeping it relatively brief. 

I am not a theologian. I am, frankly, pretty awful at apologetics. I know that many of the reasons people have for doubting the existence or the goodness of God are rooted in some intensely painful places, and there is no denying that people are capable of incredible evil. I don’t think I need to list examples - read the headlines this week or the history books published twenty years ago, and you can find plenty on your own. Bad stuff happens to people all the time, and I can’t offer a specific explanation for most of those circumstances or point to a greater purpose behind the suffering. But I do believe a greater purpose exists, and despite the condition of the world and the suffering I see in it, I do believe in the existence of a loving God who is more than just a theistic clockmaker who watches over the world without acting.

A group of us gathered this week in a friend’s apartment to pray for a man we all know and love who has been suffering with incredible pain for the past few months. It’s left him unable to work, and at times unable to get out of bed or walk. He’s a good person, as evidenced by the number and quality of the people who surround him. If circumstances were dictated by the worthiness of the individual, then his current condition would be completely incongruous with who he is. But rain falls on the righteous and unrighteous alike.

In the midst of the pain he’s been going through, he has been incredibly patient, positive, and grateful. Yeah. Grateful. Among the things he is grateful for, he expressed to us that he has grown closer to his wife in the last three months of trial than they have been in a long time. In all likelihood, the circumstances he is suffering through right now will pass - maybe not as soon as we would all have it, but pass just the same. Whether they do or not, those circumstances have still produced something good. These circumstances are not the hardest I have seen friends and loved ones go through, but I offer it as an example that the seemingly random crap that life occasionally throws at us is not always meaningless, or useless.

I’ve seen this in my own life through lost jobs and lost opportunities - things that outwardly appear completely negative, but produce great good. My wife and I would probably not be anxiously awaiting our first child right now if we had not also gone through some very uncomfortable circumstances in the recent past, and we'd never trade what we've gained for anything. I’ve also seen lots of dim circumstances - lost loved ones and sickness, for instance - in which I cannot point to any obvious greater good. Not that can be observed without some degree of faith, anyway. Some people will beg for the explanation to every circumstance, but I don’t think anyone can give that to you always. But I’ve seen often enough that the bad is not always so bad as it seems. And I believe that there is, in fact, some greater purpose. Yeah, I wish I could see it too.

I’m not saying God causes bad stuff to happen to bring the greater good out of it. Again, I'm not a theologian, and even theologians will disagree about that depending on where they fall on the free-will spectrum. I personally don’t think God directs a murderer to pull the trigger (call me a heretic if you will), but I have seen what I attribute to God bring good out of a bad act of human frailty numerous times.

Life is chaotic. That is neither inherently good nor bad, but sometimes rough stuff happens that doesn’t seem to have a good explanation at the time. Or ever, to our human point of view. Faith that there is a larger story that I can’t completely comprehend helps me make sense of the chaos.

I realize this post is a bit heavier than usual. That’s intentional. Every now and again I think it’s important to take a step back and examine so when you spend the rest of your time not taking yourself too seriously (as you should), it’s not because there is no substance there to be taken seriously.