Questions about Suffering

Image fro Youtube.

Why God?

Last night I and my wife watched "Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho" which featured three brothers who died of liver cancer one after another. It broke our hearts to see young, happy, promising good guys die just like that and leave their mom alone in life. I can just imagine how painful it was to be watching your sons suffer and die and then find yourself all alone.

Then I looked afar and tried to ponder. What's the meaning in all these? It all seemed pointless, even cruel. Why let sweet people like them suffer and die? And it seemed God just watched them die there, doing nothing. And to think that these young men were born again Christians who asked God for healing, the youngest and last of them even believed strongly for a miraculous healing as he was fighting for his life. But his prayers seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. He died, too.

I had mixed feelings last night, pity for these brothers and their mom and frustrations on why God kept silent. I remembered how the bible said God is a compassionate God, feeling the hurts of those who suffer and understanding them because Jesus himself suffered. But I asked, then why this? And then passages of promises and assurance ran through my mind---like, how everyone who asks receives. Jesus even said, "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." They asked and yet they suffered and died. Why?

I believe with all my heart that God is powerful and can heal and is compassionate. In fact, miraculous healing is his will even today. He wills to heal the sick. God never changes. I don't believe what smart preachers say against miraculous healing. They say God very seldom does this today, if any. And they hint that these days God just goes with whatever medical science does and concludes. If it says this, then God simply agrees. That's not the God I came to know in the bible. The real God sends his Word to heal diseases and "rescues them from the grave" [Psalm 107.21].

But why did this happen to these three brothers?

It added to my frustrations how I see in the news everyday criminals, killers and rebels enjoying good health while doing their misdeeds. Yes, the Maute terrorists were eventually killed, but they were given good health a long time to carry out the carnage they did that destroyed lives in Marawi, and probably elsewhere during their terrorism. If they weren't given a wasting disease like liver cancer to stop them early on to prevent them from doing stupid things, then nice born again Christians like these three brothers shouldn't be given ailments as well.

I know---who am I to question God? But I'm not asking questions in rebellion or to discredit God. I ask them because I need answers. Sometimes, it perturbs me. I'm like Job taking note of the injustice I see around and wonder. He noted: "But robbers are left in peace, and those who provoke God live in safety," [Job 12.6]. And the prophet Jeremiah asked God, "Why has the way of the wicked prospered? Why are all those who deal in treachery at ease?" [Jer.12].

We kept watching the TV program while our hearts cried out for the bereaved mother. And then she said something like, "But I know they are happy in the Lord now. And I'll wait until I join them there one day. This is the hope that keeps me going now." And then I realized---yeah, these three brothers are in a completely different condition now. They are well, healed and happy in the Lord, feeling no more pain and probably actually enjoying their passage to the hereafter. It was a short while of suffering and now they are freed and healed forever.

Paul told the Thessalonians...

We do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. [4.13]

Isaiah lamented that no one contemplated why some righteous folks die young. With this verse, we see that God also wants us to ponder on these things because they give us some wisdom about life, healing and death.

The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. [Isa.57]

Miraculous healing is very much still God's will today, but we have to see it from God's viewpoint. Sometimes, he lets the righteous die despite our prayers because he sees something in the near future that we don't. But mind you, this is the exception rather than the rule. Many religious people in church today make it the rule, and healing the exception. They even mock at miraculous healing. Some treat it like experimented food recipe---"Okay, let's try it!" they say, grinning, not out of serious faith but out of curiosity and fun.

But remember, when Jesus was here, he healed them all! Each one of them was healed! And he said, "Anyone who has faith in me will do the same things I am doing."

Still and all, my question remains unanswered. Why did these three brothers not get their request for miraculous healing even if Jesus had already promised that if we ask him "anything" in his name, he will do it? And didn't Jesus also say that where two agree together in prayer, it will be done by the Father [Matt.18.19]. 

It's good to ponder on these things so we'd know God and his mysterious will more and be deeper in the things of the Kingdom. There are lots more to learn from tragedies and deaths than there are from blessings and merriment.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of everyone; the living should take this to heart. [Eccl. 7.2].

Finally, nothing can stop me from pursuing God's signs and wonders and miracles and healing. HE has granted me and my wife a lot of instances of powerful supernatural demonstrations in the Spirit as we're doing the ministry he's entrusted to us. No smart anti-healing or anti-miracle preaching can change our minds.

True faith does not rest on circumstances that happen or on the experiences we have. It rests on God's truth in the bible. No matter what we see happening in the physical, we must insist on God's spoken truth in the bible alone. Watch what Jesus did [Luke 8]:

While Jesus was still speaking, someone came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” he said. “Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

50 Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”

51 When he arrived at the house of Jairus, he did not let anyone go in with him except Peter, John and James, and the child’s father and mother. 52 Meanwhile, all the people were wailing and mourning for her. “Stop wailing,” Jesus said. “She is not dead but asleep.”

53 They laughed at him, knowing that she was dead. 54 But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” 55 Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up.

Here's a video of the segment on "Kapuso Mo."

Present MOVE: Seeing the UNSEEN in real time.