Of Evil and the God Who Weeps

In Sunday School class a good man asked, “Why don’t I see more blessings in my life? I try hard to do what is right. I keep the commandments, I serve others. And now I’ve lost my job. How can the Lord let that happen?”

Another time a friend sat in my living room and shared. “I’ve always believed the Lord won’t give you more than you can bear, but now I have cancer, and I can’t bear it. How could he do this to me?”

On Facebook recently, someone shared a news account of a baby who was horrifically abused by his parents. The poster prefaced the news account with her own comment: “How can anyone believe in God? If there were a God, he would not let things like this happen.”

I’m thinking about these comments this week because of a thoughtful essay I read in the Sunday New York Times, “Death, the Prosperity Gospel and Me,” by Kate Bowler. Ms. Bowler, an assistant professor of the history of Christianity in North America at Duke Divinity School, has recently completed a scholarly book about Christians who believe God rewards the faithful with physical blessings, what she calls the prosperity gospel, “the belief that God grants health and wealth to those with the right kind of faith” (Kate Bowler, NY Times, February 14, 2016).

Do we expect God to reward us with temporal, physical blessings because we are good? Conversely, do we believe that those who do not follow the commandments will be punished by God?

 If this were the case, surely the hospitals would be filled with non-believers. But of course, we know this isn’t true.

Ms. Bowler has also recently received a diagnosis of Stage 4 cancer. Though she is a scholar studying the cultural phenomenon of the Prosperity Gospel, and didn’t really expect God to reward her with good health, she now finds herself asking, “Why me?” She explains her response to her illness.

The most I can say about why I have cancer, medically speaking, is that bodies are delicate and prone to error. As a Christian, I can say that the Kingdom of God is not yet fully here, and so we get sick and die. And as a scholar, I can say that our society is steeped in a culture of facile reasoning. What goes around comes around. Karma is a bitch. And God is always, for some reason, going around closing doors and opening windows. God is super into that. (Bowler)

But I have also wondered  why God won't fix the problems in my life. I know he can. I have the faith. Like the woman with an issue of blood, I yearn to touch the hem of his garment and have my problems go away.

Sometimes it’s harder when you have the faith. You know God could do it—heal the dying son-in-law, cast out the demons of mental illness, send an angel to return a child to faith. He has done it before, and why doesn’t he do it now, for you?

I don’t know the answer to that, still. But I do have some thoughts.

God’s purpose is to help us become like him. This isn’t going to happen if this life is easy. So we lose our jobs and don’t have enough money or time or patience.

To help us grow, God gives us freedom to act as we will and to suffer the consequences of our behavior. He will not force us to do anything. Because of this bad people do bad things and mostly he doesn’t stop them. We suffer the consequences of our own bad choices and the bad choices of others.

As a schoolroom, He gives us a flawed, mortal world in which to live in flawed mortal bodies. This means that our bodies get sick and die.

God also offers us the ultimate help. He doesn’t say he will not give you more than you can bear. What he does say is he will help you to bear whatever you must bear, and teach you through your suffering. In other words he is not as concerned about what happens to you but how you react to it. He says, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30).

I love this story in the Book of Mormon. The people of Alma have been made captive, forced to serve cruel masters, not even allowed to pray. But they pray silently, and this is the answer to their prayers.

And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs. . . .And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord” (Mosiah 24:14-15; emphasis added).

The people of Alma were not immediately freed from their captivity, but they were given the strength to bear their burdens. I think that is the miracle that most of us can look for in our lives. Not that the unbearable trials we face will be taken from us, but that through faith we may be given the strength to bear them, and to even grow better through the trial.

And I do know God love us, and he weeps for our sorrows, for all the sorrow, pain, injustice, and tragedy in this mortal world.

In the Mormon book of Scripture called The Pearl of Great Price, God has a conversation with Enoch. In vision, Enoch sees with God the great suffering of God’s children. He also sees God weep. Startled, Enoch asks, “How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?” (Moses 7:29)

God answers, “They are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave them their knowledge . . .; and . . . gave I unto man his agency; . . . .wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? (Moses 7: 32, 37)

So, when we lose our jobs or suffer illness or pain or sorrow or death, when children are abused, when refugees are torn from their homes, when populations are massacred, we can know that God weeps for us, for the entire world. And then he stretches out his hands, in love and compassion, to help us bear whatever it is, and to help us become more like him. 

Photo credit: James Christensen, Touching the Hem of God