Brad Alles

Earlier I wrote about how the Liam Neeson film The Grey is an atheist parable showing that suffering proves that God doesn’t exist.  This week the high school where I teach, Milwaukee Lutheran, experienced incredible suffering–one of our sophomores died in her sleep.

This girl, an active dance squad and track team member, went to bed and never woke up.  This was due to a golf-ball size tumor in her brain that was discovered through the autopsy.

As our high school family grieved with her family, it was normal and natural for students to express anger at God.  “How could God have allowed this?”  “Why did God do this?”  “Is God there at all?”  This is why the movie The Grey shows that in the face of suffering, God doesn’t answer because he doesn’t exist.

But turn that around.  If suffering shows that God doesn’t exist, doesn’t goodness and blessings prove that He does exist?  We’re quick to look at evil and problems and state that God isn’t there, but what of the existence of the good in our lives everyday?  Isn’t that an argument for His presence?

The incredible suffering that our school and her family endures is surpassed only by the comfort and promise of eternal life in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.  This sophomore girl clearly had faith in Jesus through her personal testimony and life.  That is good news.

And the good news of God was poured out on Good Friday in  Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins.  In the midst of our suffering and sorrow, He paid the penalty of our sin, and in doing so, opened up heaven for all who believe in Him as Savior.  Jesus said in John 11:25-26, ” I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

Suffering doesn’t disprove God.  Look at the good around you,  There is good and evil, happiness and suffering.  Why is this so?  Here’s why: God created the world perfectly; man sinned and brought evil and suffering.  God then brought the solution to earth: Jesus, true God and true Man, would live perfectly for us in this world of sorrow and then pay for our sins with His atoning sacrifice.  In the middle of His suffering, Jesus brought us back to a right relationship with God.

The question to you is the one Jesus posed to Martha in John 11:26: “Do you believe this?”