At times it may be tough to comprehend, but God’s intentions are always for good – no matter the circumstance.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a very common response to suffering.
And maybe you’ll agree. When it comes to an affliction, you want to fix it, solve it. You want answers to it. We want to understand it. Define it, control it. Simply put, when we are hit with injury or disease, we want an explanation. Why this? Why us? Why now? Why me? Or why my child? We wrestle with the meaning behind it all. What can God be doing?! Well, if we claim Christ as Savior, we can know one thing for certain. If suffering touches us personally or someone in our family, God’s intentions are always for good. Always. But [and here’s the catch] our sin nature has distorted our ability to comprehend and appreciate what's good from God’s point of view.
Now that truth is so important, let me repeat it. Our sin nature has so completely twisted and distorted our ability to comprehend and appreciate what's good from God's point of view, that I will dare say it’s utterly impossible to understand God’s good intentions [at least at some point in all our suffering]. It was certainly true in my life when I broke my neck. If someone could have looked far into the future, and if they could’ve seen how my paralysis would be used of God, for the eternal good of disabled people all around the world. And if that someone would have told me, “Joni, God has let me see how he’s going to use your quadriplegia to help rescue and save millions of disabled people,” if they had told me that, I would have said, “Well, I don’t care. I’m upset that God would ‘use’ me for such a thing, causing my paralysis to help others. Frankly, I don’t think another’s salvation is worth me losing the ability to walk and use my hands. God should find somebody else to do that, not me. I see nothing good in it. And I’m not willing to be put through total paralysis in order to help others.” Honestly, really, I think that’s what I would have said. My sin nature completely would’ve twisted and distorted my ability to appreciate what was good from God's point of view.
It’s one reason [as Ephesians 3 says] that we need “strength to comprehend… The love of Christ [now get this] that surpasses knowledge.” Most of us have a difficult time knowing the good that God could possibly bring out of an awful situation. Because we are such fallen creatures, God’s goodness [in our eyes] is often distorted. His goodness stretches far beyond our imagination. It surpasses our knowledge, just like Ephesians puts it. There are a lot of things about suffering that we will never know, no matter how hard we try. There will be awful things that make God look like a tyrant, rather than a God that you can trust. And it’s why the Bible tells us to put to death our sinful nature. Because only when we walk in the spirit, and not in the flesh can we trust God with unthinkable suffering that surpasses our knowledge.
You know, it’s been well over five decades since I broke my neck. But there did come a time when I trusted God and was able to appreciate his good purposes. And now, I feel so honored that he chose me in my wheelchair to help take the Gospel and see hundreds of thousands of disabled people around the world accept Christ. And so, I agree with the Lord. There are better and more important things in life than walking. And those are your hope-filled words for today.
© Joni and Friends