Understanding God's Will in the Face of Suffering

1. WHY? MAKING SENSE OF GOD’S WILL Now we will begin to try and make sense of the relationship between God and suffering

2. If God created all things, and all things God created are good, then where did evil come from? If a non-believer asked you this question, how would you respond? Evil is not the opposite of good, but the absence of good, lust like dark is the absence of light.

3. Read Matthew 25:31-46 Note that this takes place at the second coming. Again we see sins of omissions not commissions. How easy is it to commit a sin of omission without even knowing it?

4. How much of the suffering in the world today is caused by Christians sitting on the sidelines and not taking part in alleviating the suffering of the world? Notice that this is all about doing, not faith. If you were called to stand before the throne of Christ today, would He send you to the sheep or the goats? We must learn to walk the talk.

5. The author presents three basic ideas to provide a foundation for reconciling God’s goodness with the suffering we experience in today’s world. • God has given humans dominion over the world, we are responsible for what happens. • God has given us the ability to choose between good and evil. • We struggle with our freedom will.

6. God has given humans dominion over the world, we are responsible for what happens. • God created everything and made natural, physical laws that govern it. • God gave us intellect and a conscience to help us know right from wrong.

7. In the OT, God gave man the law and prophets. In the NT, God gave man Jesus. IF you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. Jesus shows us God’s will as to how we should live and it is centered around love. Finally God gave man the Holy Spirit to guide us.

8. When God wants something done in this world He sends people empowered by the Holy Spirit. He send people to offer love and encouragement. He sent Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt. To spread the Gospel, Jesus sent the disciples. What has God sent you to do?

9. 2. God has given us the ability to choose between good and evil. As an expression of love, God has given each of us free will, so we can make choices. Sometimes we make wrong choices that lead to suffering for ourselves or for others. Sometimes we choose to do what God does not want us to do. How do you decide between what is right and what is wrong?

10. 3. We struggle with our freedom will. Sin means to miss the mark, fall short, or stray from the path. We have to decide each day whether or not we will follow God’s will in the choices we make. It is easy for us to be tempted to stray from God’s path for us.

11. If we choose wrong, then we bring suffering to ourselves and others who might be affected by our actions. What God has intended as a gift for us, when misused, can lead to suffering. Give some examples, where a decision made by one person has led to suffering by others.

12. Consider three categories of suffering and how we think about the relationship of the God of love, justice, and mercy to these realities. • Natural disaster and wide spread human suffering • Suffering caused by human decisions • Suffering caused by sickness

13. Natural disasters • Throughout history, many people have seen natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, etc. as acts of God. How do you feel about God causing natural disasters?

14. It was an easy way to explain widespread destruction without a scientific explanation. Scientifically, earthquakes are cause by movements in the earth’s plates which is part of the process designed to keep earth’s core from superheating.

15. When humans get caught in one of these natural disaster, there is much devastation and loss of life. This is especially true of poor countries. Why does God not step in and stop these disasters from happening?

16. Did God bring this devastation to poor people or was it caused by poor distribution of wealth? If these things did not happen then our planet would be in big trouble. So we have to adapt because we know these things will happen. What God does in the wake of these disasters is to send others to help.

17. There are people living in poverty today with children dying of sickness, a lack of drinking water, malnutrition, and famine. 30,000 children die every day from preventable diseases related to poverty. How do you explain where God is when this happens?

18. There is enough food on this planet so that no one need s to go to bed hungry, yet, thousand even millions do every night. Why? The author says that much of the suffering in the world is because have yet to hear or answer God’s call to be God’s hand and voice in helping these sick and hungry children. How do you feel about that statement?

19. 2. Suffering caused by human decisions These decisions may be our on misuse of freedom or by others misuse of our freedom. How can others misuse “our” freedom?

20. God does not take our freedom for us nor does he remove the consequence of our actions or the actions of others. Sometimes people get angry at God over things that have happened in their lives with, in actuality, those things are a result of their poor decisions. How would you counsel a person who is angry at God, when you think or know they were the cause of the problem?

21. Sometimes we fail, maybe at business, maybe at school, maybe at a relationship. Is it comforting to know that when you fail at something in life, you are not a failure in God’s eyes?

22. God has given us free will to make our own decisions. Sometimes those decisions have painful consequences. We can also make a decision that has a painful consequence for someone else. What would life be like if God restricted our decisions so that we would not hurt ourselves or someone else? Would you be willing to sacrifice some of your free will for that to happen?

23. If we have no free will, then we become puppets. Part of the risk of God giving us free will, is that we might and probably will misuse it. Where was God when 6,000,000 Jews were killed in the holocaust?

24. God created our world then gave us dominion over it. We can choose to follow God’s path or turn away from it. Millions of people supported the Nazi efforts in WWII. Tens of millions remained silent rather than stand up for the Jews. Many churches were complacent regarding Nazism. Germany was a Christian nation, so why did so many remain silent, the sin of omission?

25. There were Germans who protested like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

26. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor in Germany. He participated in the resistance to Nazism. He was involved in a plan to assassinate Hitler which resulted in his arrest in April 1943 and his subsequent execution by hanging in April 1945, 23 days before the Nazis' surrender.

27. The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer ... kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God

28. How is what happened in Germany in WWII similar to what happened in America with regard to slavery? What other instances in America can you think of where many stood on the sidelines while bad things happened to others? Where have you seen Christians and Christian churches remain complacent when others were being wronged?