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    Why?: Making Sense of God's Will
    Why?: Making Sense of God's Will
    Why?: Making Sense of God's Will
    Ebook93 pages1 hour

    Why?: Making Sense of God's Will

    By Adam Hamilton

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    About this ebook

    Where is God when tragedy and suffering strike?

    When the ground shakes, and a poor nation's economy is destroyed; when the waters rise, washing away a community's hopes and dreams; when a child suffers neglect and abuse; when violence tears apart nations; where is God; If God is all powerful, and if each one of us is a beloved child of God, then how can God allow tragedy and suffering to infest his creation?

    In Why?, best-selling author Adam Hamilton brings fresh insight to the age-old question of how to understand the will of God. Rejecting simplistic answers and unexamined assumptions, he lays out core ideas for comprehending God's plan for the world, including:

    God will not take away our free will, even when we use it to grieve him.
    God will never abandon us, especially in the midst of our suffering.
    While God is not the author of suffering, God will bring blessing out of tragedy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateFeb 20, 2018
    ISBN9781501858291
    Author

    Adam Hamilton

    Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City. Started in 1990 with four people, the church has grown to become the largest United Methodist Church in the United States with over 18,000 members. The church is well known for connecting with agnostics, skeptics, and spiritual seekers. In 2012, it was recognized as the most influential mainline church in America, and Hamilton was asked by the White House to deliver the sermon at the Obama inaugural prayer service. Hamilton, whose theological training includes an undergraduate degree from Oral Roberts University and a graduate degree from Southern Methodist University where he was honored for his work in social ethics, is the author of nineteen books. He has been married to his wife, LaVon, for thirty-one years and has two adult daughters.

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      Book preview

      Why? - Adam Hamilton

      INTRODUCTION

      A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

      Since it was first published in 2011, Why? Making Sense of God’s Will has been read and shared by more than 150,000 people. At the time, we had just experienced disastrous earthquakes in Haiti and New Zealand and a quake and tsunami in Japan, and there were continuing acts of domestic and international terrorism. In addition, most of us experience personal loss or tragedy of some kind each year.

      As I counsel with parishioners, talk with those curious about faith or struggling with faith, and have conversations with complete strangers, I can count on the question of theodicy to come up with great regularity: If there is a loving and all-powerful God, why do bad things happen?

      My aim in writing Why? was to distill into a very short book a way of thinking about this question that I’ve found helpful in making sense not only of suffering but also of intercessory prayer and of what is meant when Scripture speaks of God’s will. I wanted the book to be brief enough to be read in one sitting, and in a format that readers might easily share with a friend.

      I wish I could say that since the book was first published the world has become a safer place, with less tragedy, fewer natural disasters, and reduced suffering, but that is not the case. I think the need for this little book is greater now than ever.

      My hope is that you’ll find the book helpful as you wrestle with the timeless question of suffering, and that it might lead you to a deeper faith and a greater trust that goodness and God’s love will ultimately prevail.

      Adam Hamilton, 2018

      CHAPTER ONE

      WHY DO THE INNOCENT SUFFER?

      God created humankind in his image,

      in the image of God he created them;

      male and female he created them.

      God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

      GENESIS 1:27-28

      Sitting in an airport, a woman looks up at the television screen to learn that a natural disaster has forced millions from their homes in a poor country. The camera crews show scenes of the devastation, and the reporter speaks of how many people lost their lives in a particular city. Speaking to no one in particular, but loud enough that those nearby can hear her, she says, How can you still believe in God when you’ve seen something like that?

      A man who lost everything in the Great Recession of 2008 did not reject his faith, but he wanted to know, Why is God punishing me? I prayed. I gave to the church. I volunteered to serve others. And I lost everything! I just want to know what I did that was so bad that God would do this to me?

      A young woman speaks to me, confused. Her husband had died leaving her a single mom to care for two small children. Several Christian friends suggested that she take comfort in the fact that it must have been the will of God. Far from comforting her, it leaves her angry with God.

      Suffering, unanswered prayers, and the unfairness of life naturally lead us to question God’s goodness and sometimes to question God’s very existence. Ask atheists why they reject the idea of God, and this will be among their answers. But ask thoughtful Christians and you will find that they, too, have wrestled with these questions throughout their lives.

      The question is traditionally posed in this way, If God is loving and just, then God must not be all powerful. Or, if God is all-powerful, God must not be loving and just. For if God were all-powerful and loving and just, then God would stop the evil, pain, and suffering in our world. Theologians have a special name for the attempt to resolve this quandary: they call it theodicy, from the Greek words for God and justice. Theodicy is the attempt to reconcile belief in a loving and powerful God with the suffering present in our world.

      I have spent much of the last twenty-five years in ministry helping people wrestle with these questions. I’ve done this by inviting them to question the assumptions they have held about God and God’s work in the world, and by helping them to see how the biblical authors and the leading characters of the Bible wrestled with and ultimately answered these questions.

      In this chapter I’d like to invite you into a conversation about these issues. I don’t propose that in these few pages we will completely resolve the issue, but my hope is to give you a bit of help as you seek to answer the questions for yourself. Then, in the following chapters, we’ll consider questions related to unanswered prayer, questions related to God’s will, and finally, God’s ultimate triumph over evil and suffering.

      The Bible and Suffering

      Our disappointment with God in the face of suffering or tragedy or injustice typically stems from our assumptions about how God is supposed to work in our world. When God does not meet our expectations, we are disappointed, disillusioned, and confused. I’d like to invite you to challenge two commonly held but misguided assumptions before we attempt to reconcile God’s goodness with suffering.

      Among the assumptions I once held was that the Bible teaches that if I believe in God and try to be a good person, God will take care of me and bless me and nothing bad will happen to me. Because this is what I thought the Bible taught, every time something bad happened in my life (my parents divorced, our house burned down, two of my best friends were killed in an accident), I was left wondering if I was being punished by God because I had been bad, or if I simply did not have enough faith in God, or if, perhaps, there really was no God after all.

      As I began to actually read the Bible I found that my assumptions about what the Bible taught were wrong. The sweeping message of the Bible is not a promise that those who believe and do good will not suffer. Instead the Bible is largely a book about people who refused to let go of their faith in the face of suffering.

      Consider a few of the major stories of suffering in the Old Testament: Joseph (the son of Jacob) is sold into slavery by his brothers. The Israelites spend 400 years oppressed by the Egyptians. Moses does God’s work and yet is so miserable at times he prays for God to kill him. Saul spends years attempting to kill the young David (during which time David writes many of the Bible’s complaint psalms). The entire epic poem of Job is about a good man who suffers terribly yet refuses to give up his faith.

      The prophets, too, include their share of

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