There is a lot of pain and suffering in this world, and sometimes it seems that God just sits back and watches and doesn’t care. Why is that? I don’t know if we’re ever going to find an answer to that question while we’re still alive, but I’d like to give my opinion.
I believe I’m like most people. I want to be comfortable, happy and safe. I want to have enough money to pay my bills, to help my kids with college, and to go on a vacation once in a while. I want to be healthy. What’s wrong with that? Why wouldn’t God want the same things for me? Well, I believe it’s because He want much, much more for me!
Dr. Larry Crabb is a best-selling author, counselor and psychologist. He’s written many popular books including “Inside Out”, “Finding God”, and “The Marriage Builder”. I’ve read some of his books and liked them, though the ones I read were really deep and kind of hard to digest.
I read a book by Larry Crabb recently that was quite different from the other’s that I’ve read by him before. This book was called “Shattered Dreams - God’s Unexpected Pathway to Joy”, and I think it was different because it was something that Dr. Crabb had personally experienced and very intimately touched him. The book was much easier to follow, in my opinion, than the others I had read by him.
Most people believe that joy and happiness are the same thing. If we have material things to make us comfortable such as a big house, a new car, a great job than we’ll have joy. Maybe having a loving husband or wife and obedient children is what’s necessary. But while those things might make us happy, they don’t necessarily lead to joy.
The Bible says that God wants to give good things to his children, even more than we want to give good things to our children. So God obviously wants us to be happy, right? That could be true, and while He does want those things for us, if they get in the way of having relationship with Him then He’ll take the relationship every time. That’s where we will find true joy.
Sometimes God will let us experience pain and suffering so that we don’t become too satisfied with our current lifestyle. He also realizes that we can get very busy trying to maintain that “happy” lifestyle, and that will also limit the joy we will find by having relationship with Him. What happens when we experience this pain? Most of us will do whatever we can to get rid of it.
“Shattered Dreams” encourages us to allow ourselves to feel that pain, to mourn, and to grieve. It is in the midst of these trials, and on the other side of them, that we encounter God, and only then are we able to experience the true joy that He desires. It is not comfortable or fun, but it is ultimately the only true path to joy, and in my opinion, the reason that bad things happen to good people, and why God allows suffering.
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