Crisis of Faith

Every Christian will eventually face a moment in time when their faith is tested by an evil event which occurs in their lives and they must suddenly reconcile the concept of an all-powerful and loving God with a God who permits evil things to be done to those who follow Him. This evil event can be the death of a child, a spouse, a parent, or a close friend. It can be an incident of rape or abuse. It can be learning that the person, or someone they love, has a life-threatening illness, or a time when they suffer chronic unrelieved physical pain. It can be a natural disaster that destroys everything they own. It can also be something smaller, like the loss of a job or a time of poverty.

Whatever the trial that is allowed to enter into their life, there are two kinds of Christians: those who throw up their hands and say, “WHY ME?” and those who recognize the trial as part of the Cross necessary for salvation and pick it up. The “WHY ME?” crowd often give in to anger and, rather than picking up their cross and following the Lord as they had promised to do, abandon the Lord and give up on the Redeemer. Even if they continue to go through the motions of faith such as going to Church, their inward faith is tarnished.

It is unfortunate, but true, that I was once a “WHY ME?” crowd member. I endured four years of sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather when I was just a child. When he was finally removed from my life, I didn’t have someone around who was strong in the faith to help me make sense of this terrible thing. I became angry with God because I felt that He had failed to protect me. I thought that somehow I must have been rejected by Him, for it looked to me as if He hadn’t cared enough about me to stop these terrible things from happening. In my eyes, this was just one more incident of people who were supposed to protect me failing to do so. It was just one more reason not to trust.

I wandered far off the path of righteousness in my anger and hurt. God kept calling me, and sometimes His call would be strong enough that I would find the path again and try to walk it but my steps were unsteady and I would eventually come up against another test which would start the process of “WHY ME?” all over again.

There were two huge moments where I began to transform how I saw these times of trial, and my perception of the reason that God allows such evil to enter into our lives. The first moment was when the Holy Spirit helped me to understand the true nature of God’s gift of Free Will. God’s gift of Free Will was given to man because that gift is a requirement for a real relationship. Real relationships have to be open to the possibility of rejection, because they have to be a choice. God wants a real relationship with mankind. He WANTS for us to CHOOSE to be with Him. Yes, He has the power to force us to worship Him, but He chooses to allow us to go our own way. To encourage us to choose the right path, though, He set into motion consequences for each action. When we sin, it hurts others even as it hurts us.

Now, because God is God, when He promises something, He does not break that promise. Yes, He knows that the person has intentions of sinning because He knows what is in their heart. However, right up until the moment the act is committed the person still has the chance to turn from their sin. If God interferes and stops them before they sin, He takes away the chance for them to turn away from that sin. After the sin has occurred, God does not abandon either the sinner or the one sinned against. The sinner is still offered the opportunity to repent and be forgiven. The one sinned against is given opportunities to gain in grace by first offering up this trial to God, second allowing God to use this pain for good of others who have been similarly victimized by sin, and third helping with the redemption of the sinner by offering them our forgiveness. However, here again free will comes into play. We can choose, instead of offering up this trial, to hug this trial close to ourselves and be cut by its jagged edges, poisoned by its venom.

The second moment where I began to transform how I saw my times of trial came during a prayer group session. I admitted that when I was in pain or in suffering, rather than turning to God I often tended to turn away from Him. I admitted that I struggled with feeling abandoned by Him during these moments, as if He didn’t care or didn’t love me. One man in the group looked at me and asked me whether I believe that God loves His Son, Jesus. I answered that I knew He did. The man then reminded me of the terrible, horrible suffering that Jesus endured the day He died on the cross. He then asked me, “If God who loves His Son allowed Jesus to suffer, what makes YOU so special?”. I was absolutely humbled. He was right. God hadn’t allowed me to suffer because He didn’t love me, but precisely because He DID.

Every holy man and woman of God has suffered at some point in time. The Holiest of them were blessed to suffer often and greatly. Peter, Paul, and every saint in history has suffered for their faith. Christ himself suffered so much on the cross that at one point even HE cried out, “My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me?” That line actually comes from Psalms, and by using it Christ was showing us how we are to get through those dark times: pray. Christ assured us that as Christians we would, if we wanted to follow Him, HAVE to pick up our cross and follow Him. That cross comes in many different forms and isn’t always easy to recognize at first. It can be a small cross, such as the loss of a job or a brief time of poverty. It can be a large cross like chronic pain, or an incurable disease which threatens our life. However, the assurance that we are given is that picking up these crosses will help us to die to the sin and be given new life in Christ. It doesn’t mean that the journey will be easy; it certainly wasn’t for Christ, but that the results are assured. We will be given new life if we can see our struggle through to the end and offer it up to the God whose power can transform even the greatest of evils into the greatest of good.