A God Who Suffers - Part 2

To read Part 1 of this post click here.

All these references (the ones mentioned at the end of Part 1) which indicate that God enters into the sufferings of his people are affirmed by the statement of a prophet who spoke out of the experience of exile: “In all their distress he too was distressed. . . . In his love and mercy he redeemed them” (Isaiah 63:9 NIV). An implication of the prophetic words is that Yahweh can and does participate in the suffering of the world, not only as one who causes it, but also as one who is affected by it.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament finds its finest expression in Hosea’s description of God’s heartbroken fatherly anguish over his prodigal child, Israel: “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused” (Hosea 11:8 NIV).

The suffering of God is also expressed in the compassionate longing of a husband who desires reconciliation with his unfaithful wife.

Yahweh feels abandoned by Israel like a husband who is abandoned by his wife. The text reveals God as the one who was injured and offended by his unfaithful wife: “The Lord said to me, ‘Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites’” (Hosea 3:1 NIV).

It is this picture of a suffering God who is intimately bound to his people which is the central focus of the Old Testament. This view of a God who suffers with, for, and because of his people is expressed throughout the Old Testament, especially in the messages of Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.

The idea of a suffering God is especially true in the life and ministry of Jeremiah. Jeremiah’s personal pain and his compassion for the people find their source in the love of God for Israel. Jeremiah experienced God's pain because of the rebellion of Israel and he tried to convey that reality to the people through his own grief and pain.

The God of the Old Testament is not absent from the world and is not detached from human affairs. God is intimately involved in the world and he chooses to enter into human history. God wills to be with humanity in bad as well as good times: “The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey’” (Exodus 3:7-8 NIV).

As a result of his involvement with his creation, God participates in the misery of humanity. His pain for the world is never the sympathetic view of the uninvolved onlooker, but it is the genuine pain of one who is directly affected by the suffering of those who suffer and who takes upon himself the burden of the people. As Fretheim wrote (p. 39): “God is affected in many ways by what happens on earth.”

The opening speech in the book of Isaiah (Isaiah 1:2-9) deals not with the anger of God, but with the sorrow of God; it deals with the plight of a father who has been abandoned by his children. Isaiah 5:1-7 provides an additional example of the pain of God because of the rebellion of Israel. The “Song of the Vineyard,” reveals the wonderment of God whose care for the vineyard has been of no avail: “What more could have been done for my vineyard than I have done for it?” (Isaiah 5:4). Here, God himself says that he is at a loss trying to explain the rebellion of his people. God’s sorrow rather than the people's tragedy is the theme of this song. God's grief and disappointment are revealed in his being hurt at the thought of having to abandon his vineyard in which he had labored and placed so much hope for good things.

Thus, divine suffering is seen throughout the writings of the prophets and in many other passages of the Old Testament. God’s suffering is seen in his disappointment with Israel:

“What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?” (Jeremiah 2:5 RSV).

“What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah?” (Hosea 6:4 RSV).

“My people, what have I done to you? How have I burdened you? Answer me” (Micah 6:3 NIV).

“Why do these people keep going along their self-destructive path, refusing to turn back, even though I have warned them?” (Jeremiah 8:5).

In trying to explain God’s questions, Fretheim wrote (p. 56): “These questions seem to imply a genuine loss on God’s part as to what might explain the faithlessness of the people.” God’s disappointment with his people gives occasion to these divine laments and expresses his pain at the rebellion of Israel.

God suffers because of his love for Israel. He experiences pain because of their unfaithfulness. God’s suffering teaches us an important lesson about God. Because God loves his people and desires their well-being, God identifies himself with their suffering. This identification of God with his people makes God vulnerable to being hurt, but it is this divine suffering that will motivate Israel to repent and turn to God.

To be continued.

Reference:

Fretheim, Terence. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A God Who Suffers - Part 1

In my previous post on the suffering of God, I wrote that the God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. The view that God chooses to identify with Israel and enter their history raises an important question: does God suffer with his people? According to the Old Testament perspective, God cannot do otherwise. Yahweh is related to Israel through the covenant established at Sinai. Therefore, he is directly involved with Israel in their misfortunes and their failures.

In his book, What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), Lucien Richard summarizes what biblical scholars and theologians have written on the biblical view of suffering. In his summary of Walter Brueggemann’s view on the theology of the pain of God, Lucien wrote: “From within the covenantal relationship with God, Israel senses that its God is not only an enforcer and a legitimator of existing structures, but is also one who embraces Israel’s pain” (p. 16).

By embracing the pain of his people, God’s own self is transformed. God takes on the pain of Israel in his own person because of his compassion for them. E. S. Gerstenberger wrote: “In the Old Testament . . . suffering can be regarded as a means of expiation. A deity has been injured through human misconduct. He becomes angry, strikes back, and brings disaster upon the culprit and his community. But because the deity in principle stands in a friendly, and even familiar, relationship to the sufferer, the suffering will soften the wrath of God. God cannot bear to see his own people in misery; his justifiable indignation is transformed into compassion” (p. 107).

The God of the Old Testament saves and blesses Israel because of this covenantal relationship that is guaranteed by God’s hesed, his faithful love for Israel. Because of this special relationship established with the nation, God is united with his people and participates in their life and their misery. This special relationship is affirmed in the Old Testament in the emotional language of human suffering. As a partner in this relationship, God assumes the function of not only Israel’s God, but also her closest friend, a friend who takes upon himself part of the burden of his suffering friends (cf. John 15:13).

The Old Testament writers describe God’s response to Israel’s sins and rebellions in words that already express within themselves an element of divine suffering. One example is the rebellion of Israel at the occasion of the building of the golden calf in Exodus 32. At Sinai, Israel rebelled against God by being unfaithful to God and by violating the demands of the covenant which required exclusive allegiance to him.

God’s response to Israel’s apostasy was one of indignation. God told Moses: “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation” (Exodus 32:10). Israel had entered into a relationship with Yahweh and now that relationship had been broken. God was affected by Israel’s disloyalty. God’s words to Moses, “Let me alone,” represents God’s desire to suffer grief in isolation.

This language of divine suffering is designed to describe a faith which views God in terms of historical involvement and relatedness with his people. To Israel, God was not an impersonal being nor was he a God that was above and beyond the world. To the contrary, he was a God who was with them (Isaiah 7:14), the Holy One who lived among the people (Hosea 11:9). “For what great nation has a god as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7). This is the reason Israel ascribed personal characteristics to God, such as love, anger, anguish, patience, jealousy, and joy.

In addition, many other characteristics attributed to God reflect the fact that when God responds to human sin and rebellion, his response also contains the element of divine suffering. When God deals with humanity, God expresses a variety of reactions:

God is jealous: “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14 NIV).

When God punishes, punishment is sometimes done out of a sense of injured honor: “Then my anger will cease and my wrath against them will subside, and I will be avenged. And when I have spent my wrath upon them, they will know that I the Lord have spoken in my zeal” (Ezekiel 5:13 NIV).

God becomes angry and enraged: “How long, O Lord? Will you be angry forever? How long will your jealousy burn like fire?” ( Psalm 79:5 NIV).

God is grieved by human sins: “The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6 NIV).

God changes his mind: “And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people” (Exodus 32:14 NRSV).

God is affected by the suffering of his people: “Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge; for the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them” (Judges 2:18 RSV).

God cries out like a person in pain: “The Lord goes forth like a soldier, like a warrior he stirs up his fury; he cries out, he shouts aloud, he shows himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my peace, I have kept still and restrained myself; now I will cry out like a woman in labor, I will gasp and pant” (Isaiah 42:13-14 NRSV).

Gerstenberger wrote: “All such affirmations in the Old Testament are deeply rooted in the emotional language of human suffering. ‘Pity’ (e.g., Hos. 2:23) is a new turning toward a beloved person that is rooted in keen anxiety; ‘regret’ (e.g., Gen. 6:6) is the painful concession to have failed in one’s plan. Thus for the Israelite God’s suffering is, strange as it may sound, precisely like human suffering, a bitter experience that injures body and spirit . . . God’s suffering results from the coinciding of human and divine action . . . His pain is the consequence of human misconduct” (p. 100).

To be continued in Part 2

References:

Gerstenberger, E. S. and W. Schrage, Suffering. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1977.

Richard, Lucien. What Are They Saying About the Theology of Suffering. New York: Paulist Press, 1992.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

The Suffering of God

Few people today truly know the God of the Old Testament. Most Christians focus their study of Scriptures almost exclusively on the New Testament. For many, the God of the Old Testament is a violent God, a God of wrath, and an evil deity. Consequently, the view of a God who suffers with and because of his people is foreign to many Christians.

One book that has changed the way I perceive the God of the Old Testament is Terence Fretheim’s book, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Overtures to Biblical Theology; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984). Fretheim’s book shows how much Christians have been influenced by Greek philosophy, a philosophy that led the leaders of the early church to adopt the doctrine of the impassibility of God.

The doctrine of the impassibility of God teaches that the God of the Bible is a perfect being and as such he cannot suffer. Since God is a perfect being, he cannot be affected by outside events and thus cannot suffer, for suffering is a sign of imperfection. Today I begin a series of studies that will summarize some of the issues Fretheim raises in his book. Those who have read The Suffering of God will notice how much Fretheim’s views have affected my own views.

The God of the Old Testament is a God who chooses to identify himself with his people in their suffering. There are several passages in the Bible that reveal the pain of God for the sins and disobedience of his people.

The God who in the New Testament suffered in the person of Christ is the same God who in the Old Testament suffered because of the sins of his people. Several Old Testament texts give strong evidence that God experiences suffering. The suffering of God is portrayed in his words and actions. God’s suffering for his people is consistent with his nature as a God who chooses to enter into the history of Israel and establish a genuine relationship with his people.

The God of the Old Testament is known primarily by his role as creator and redeemer. In these two roles, God voluntarily limits himself to a gradual process of creation from the chaos of nothingness to the world in which we live. He is also the God who chooses to be patient with people who are arrogant, stubborn, and disobedient.

The stubbornness and rebellion of Israel are summarized in the words of the Levite prayer: “You warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances, by the observance of which a person shall live. They turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey” (Nehemiah 9:29).

It is this voluntary limiting of God that sets the framework for the concept of God’s suffering. Since the God of the Bible reveals himself to his people in human form (Genesis 18:1-2) and communicates directly with human beings, the people of Israel assumed that God had thought and will, and that he was capable of emotions, anger, and love.

Throughout the Old Testament one can see that the moral evil of the world, the rebellion of human beings, and the disobedience of his people provoke God to anger (Deuteronomy 4:25; Judges 2:12) in the same way his love for them also moves him toward costly sacrifice (Joel 2:13; Hosea 11:1-9). The God of the Bible is a God who carries the burden of his people, who knows the failure of his purpose for them, who sorrows over them with a love that prevails over wrath, and who suffers because of their affliction.

The suffering of God in the Old Testament anticipates the pain and the agony of the Suffering Servant of the New Testament: “It is as if there were a cross unseen, standing on its undiscovered hill, far back in the ages, out of which were sounding always, just the same deep voice of suffering love and patience, that was heard by mortal ears from the sacred hill of Calvary” (H. Wheeler Robinson, Suffering: Human and Divine [New York: The Macmillan Company, 1939] 145).

These words express the nature of the God believers find in the Old Testament, the very same loving, caring, hurting God who reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

Israel believed that God was present with the people in their suffering, that their God was a God who understood what the people were going through. Although Israel believed that God was the cause of their suffering, they also believed that God understood their suffering. Divine understanding for them presupposes suffering with them. The God who revealed himself to Israel could not be the personal God of his people without experiencing suffering. Those who do not experience suffering cannot sympathize with the pain and suffering of others (Hebrews 4:15; 5:8). God is a loving and compassionate God and it pains him to see humanity suffer.

According to Fretheim (p. 35), there are two poles for understanding God in the Old Testament. One is that God is a radically transcendent Lord who stands outside the world without acting in the world. This is what he calls the traditional view of God.

The second is the organismic view, a view in which a greater continuity, that is, a greater intimacy between God and the world is discerned. In the organismic view there is a relationship of reciprocity. In other words, the world is not only affected by God, God is also affected by the world, both positively and negatively. God has chosen to be involved in the history of the world and to be limited by it. Therefore, although God is unchangeable in his steadfast love and his salvific will for all creation, God does change in response to the interaction between himself and his creation.

For Israel to have understood God in any other light would have been incompatible with the revelation of God’s character in their history. The people of Israel could not have understood a God who had complete freedom to act in the realm of history but who refused to do so because of a lack of compassion or desire. After all, they had experienced just the opposite in the Exodus.

The belief in the genuine love of God for Israel necessitated, for them, a God who sympathized with his people, not merely superficially recognizing their condition, but actually participating with them in their sufferings. This is how Israel experienced God in Egypt: Exodus 2:24-25.

For God to have seen the affliction of his people, to have heard their cry, and to have known their suffering (Exodus 3:7) required God taking their sorrows into his very being and allowing those sorrows to arouse feelings of compassion and to affect his being in his interactions with them.

Thus, the suffering of God is basic for the proper understanding of the concept of relatedness or relationship which in the Old Testament derives from the concept of the covenant and the understanding of Israel as the chosen people of God. As Israel understood God, the idea of the suffering of God to some extent limited the concept of God’s power. For the relationship between God and Israel to have integrity required God giving up some of his own power and freedom for the sake of the relationship.

To be continued.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: God, Suffering

A Mother and Her Seven Sons

Yesterday I posted a study on the mother of seven sons who became a symbol of the tragedy that came upon Jerusalem. In ancient Israel, being a mother of seven sons was considered to be a great blessing. Thus, being a mother of seven sons became a proverbial expression to describe a woman blessed by God.

There is a story in 2 Maccabees 7:1-40 about a mother and her seven sons who were martyred because of their faith in God and because of their commitment to the religious traditions of Judaism. The story reflects the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV.

The story of the mother and her seven sons is a beautiful story of faithful believers who loved their God. Since many people have never taken the time to read 2 Maccabees, I have decided to reproduce the story here. The text is taken from the New Revised Standard Version. Enjoy the story of the mother and her seven sons.

A Mother and Her Seven Sons (2 Maccabees 7:1-41)

It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and thongs, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh. 2 One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, "What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our ancestors." 3 The king fell into a rage, and gave orders to have pans and caldrons heated. 4 These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother looked on. 5 When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying, 6 "The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song that bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, 'And he will have compassion on his servants.'"

7 After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, "Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?" 8 He replied in the language of his ancestors and said to them, "No." Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done. 9 And when he was at his last breath, he said, "You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws." 10 After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, 11 and said nobly, "I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again." 12 As a result the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man's spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.

13 After he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way. 14 When he was near death, he said, "One cannot but choose to die at the hands of mortals and to cherish the hope God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!" 15 Next they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him. 16 But he looked at the king, and said, "Because you have authority among mortals, though you also are mortal, you do what you please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people. 17 Keep on, and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants!"

18 After him they brought forward the sixth. And when he was about to die, he said, "Do not deceive yourself in vain. For we are suffering these things on our own account, because of our sins against our own God. Therefore astounding things have happened. 19 But do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!" 20 The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Although she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord. 21 She encouraged each of them in the language of their ancestors. Filled with a noble spirit, she reinforced her woman's reasoning with a man's courage, and said to them, 22 "I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. 23 Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."

24 Antiochus felt that he was being treated with contempt, and he was suspicious of her reproachful tone. The youngest brother being still alive, Antiochus not only appealed to him in words, but promised with oaths that he would make him rich and enviable if he would turn from the ways of his ancestors, and that he would take him for his Friend and entrust him with public affairs. 25 Since the young man would not listen to him at all, the king called the mother to him and urged her to advise the youth to save himself. 26 After much urging on his part, she undertook to persuade her son. 27 But, leaning close to him, she spoke in their native language as follows, deriding the cruel tyrant: "My son, have pity on me. I carried you nine months in my womb, and nursed you for three years, and have reared you and brought you up to this point in your life, and have taken care of you. 28 I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. And in the same way the human race came into being. 29 Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God's mercy I may get you back again along with your brothers."

30 While she was still speaking, the young man said, "What are you waiting for? I will not obey the king's command, but I obey the command of the law that was given to our ancestors through Moses. 31 But you, who have contrived all sorts of evil against the Hebrews, will certainly not escape the hands of God. 32 For we are suffering because of our own sins. 33 And if our living Lord is angry for a little while, to rebuke and discipline us, he will again be reconciled with his own servants. 34 But you, unholy wretch, you most defiled of all mortals, do not be elated in vain and puffed up by uncertain hopes, when you raise your hand against the children of heaven. 35 You have not yet escaped the judgment of the almighty, all-seeing God. 36 For our brothers after enduring a brief suffering have drunk of ever-flowing life, under God's covenant; but you, by the judgment of God, will receive just punishment for your arrogance. 37 I, like my brothers, give up body and life for the laws of our ancestors, appealing to God to show mercy soon to our nation and by trials and plagues to make you confess that he alone is God, 38 and through me and my brothers to bring to an end the wrath of the Almighty that has justly fallen on our whole nation."

39 The king fell into a rage, and handled him worse than the others, being exasperated at his scorn. 40 So he died in his integrity, putting his whole trust in the Lord. 41 Last of all, the mother died, after her sons.

This story was very popular among Jews and Christians because the experience of the woman and her seven sons gave meaning to the persecution they suffered because of their faith. The belief in the resurrection from the dead (see 7:9, 11, 14 and also the mother’s words in 7:23) provided the martyrs with the hope that allowed them to remain faithful until the end.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Martyrs, Resurrection, Seven Sons, Suffering

Is God Good?

A few days ago, I was talking to a good friend who is facing a very tough time in life. This friend is facing pain and sorrow, doubts and uncertainty. My friend is one of those individuals who has experienced profound distress because of events that cannot be controlled.

During the conversation, my friend told me: “I am beginning to doubt the existence of God. If God exists, then he is not good.” Only a person who has gone through the valley of deep darkness and experienced extreme suffering could speak these words.

Is God good? The Bible affirms the goodness of God: “No one is good-- except God alone” (Luke 18:19). “God is truly good to Israel, to those whose heart is pure” (Psalm 73:1). The Bible also declares that all that God has made is good: “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31).

The words of my friend reminded me of an article written by Martin Buber, “The Heart Determines: Psalm 73.” In his article, Buber deals with the perplexing condition faced by the Psalmist and how God deals with the issue of injustice. The question asked by the Psalmist was “Why are these bad things happening to Israel?” The Psalmist’s question led him to the conclusion that God was not good to his people.

Only a person who does not know God intimately can even think that God is not good. Those who know God intimately also know that God is good. In the depth of his heart, the Psalmist knew that God was good to those pure in heart, but in his desperate condition, the Psalmist believed he was not experiencing God’s goodness and concluded that God was not good.

A careful reading of Psalm 73 reveals that the heart determines whether God is good. As Buber wrote: “The state of the heart determines whether a man lives in the truth, in which God’s goodness is experienced, or in the semblance of truth, where the fact that it ‘goes ill’ with him is confused with the illusion that God is not good to him” (p. 110).

The word “heart” appears six times in Psalm 73 (vv. 1, 7, 13, 21, 26 [2x]). Since the heart determines whether God is good, as Buber wrote, the word “heart” becomes the key to understanding the experience of the Psalmist and the answer he offers at the end of his ordeal.

Many issues can bring an individual to the brink of despair. In the case of the Psalmist, it was the prosperity of the wicked. Buber wrote: “Seeing the prosperity of ‘the wicked’ daily and hearing their braggart speech has brought him very near to the abyss of despairing unbelief, of the inability to believe any more in a living God active in life” (p. 111).

The Psalmist expressed his personal struggle as follows:

No doubt about it! God is good—
good to good people, good to the good-hearted.
But I nearly missed it,
missed seeing his goodness.
I was looking the other way,
looking up to the people
At the top,
envying the wicked who have it made,
Who have nothing to worry about,
not a care in the whole wide world.
Pretentious with arrogance,
they wear the latest fashions in violence,
Pampered and overfed,
decked out in silk bows of silliness.
They jeer, using words to kill;
they bully their way with words.
They're full of hot air,
loudmouths disturbing the peace.
People actually listen to them—can you believe it?
Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words.
What's going on here? Is God out to lunch?
Nobody's tending the store.
The wicked get by with everything;
they have it made, piling up riches
I've been stupid to play by the rules;
what has it gotten me?
A long run of bad luck, that's what—
a slap in the face every time I walk out the door.
If I'd have given in and talked like this,
I would have betrayed your dear children.
Still, when I tried to figure it out,
all I got was a splitting headache...
Until I entered the sanctuary of God.

“Until I entered the sanctuary of God.” The Psalmist learned what many other believers have discovered in their personal struggles: that prayer and worship change the way people look at the problems of life.

The Psalmist’s discovery that God was good came at the end of his struggle. He had gone through a difficult time and he almost fell victim to the doubts that weakened his faith. But he held to his faith and integrity, notwithstanding all the circumstances in his life that served to test his faith in the goodness of God.

In his distressful situation, my friend can only see evil and wrongdoing. My friend experiences pain and suffering and this situation has caused my friend to lose confidence in God as a good God, a God who is wise and just. It is in times like these that people begin to doubt that God is really active and present in one’s life.

People deal with problems in different ways. Believers find answers to their problems as they live in fellowship with God. It is in worship that believers recognize the constant presence of a loving and caring God. But life is not easy; life is tough. At times it is difficult to understand the mysteries of God’s purposes or discern the meanings of his work in human events.

I cannot explain the reasons my friend is experiencing such a difficult time. In the midst of all this perplexity I can only affirm that God is good. My friend should remember that the God who delivered and helped in the past is the same God who wants to help and save in the present.

God is good. This was the reality the Psalmist experienced as he discovered the power of faith in God. It was that faith that helped him transcend his problems so completely that he learned to survive his doubts and overcome all problems in his life.

God is good. In times of doubt and despair the struggling soul must remain confident that God is a caring and compassionate God. Anyone who draws near to God with a pure heart discovers, as the Psalmist did, that God is good.

Reference:

Martin Buber, “The Heart Determines: Psalm 73,” Theodicy in the Old Testament, ed. James L. Crenshaw (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983) 109-118.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Evil, Martin Buber, Psalm 73, Suffering