Why Tragedy Doesn’t Let God Off the Hook

It’s now two weeks after the worst earthquake to wreak havoc on southern Turkey and northwestern Syria in over 80 years. As of Monday another powerful temblor has struck the same region. Buildings collapsed. More lives were lost.

You’ve heard the argument. You’ve thought it too. 

If God is all powerful and good, why does he allow for so many good people to suffer? Why would a good God let bad things happen in the world he made?

When we witness tragedy in our own lives, like the death of a loved one, or when we experience tragedy on a regional, national, or global scale—the existence of evil and suffering seem to outweigh the goodness of an all-powerful, benevolent God.

If he is good, then he sure isn’t powerful. And if he’s powerful, then God sure isn’t very good. In fact, he sounds a lot more like Disney’s Maleficent than he does a deity.

Or he’s a young child playing burning ants with a magnifying glass. What a maniac. 

Based on these observations about our world, any reasonable person in this world should come to terms with the simple fact that God does not exist. But if God does not exist, then why should anyone have a problem with suffering and evil at all?

If God is not there, if he is nowhere, then why do we call something “good” or “evil” in the first place? If God is not there, isn’t suffering just a feeling—no more or less important than other experiences we live through?

But tragedy doesn't let God off the hook either. If God does exist, then the very existence of suffering and evil is a really big problem for Christians to make sense of. However, it’s an even greater problem for everyone else—because ultimately, evil and suffering have no one to report to in a world without God. They happen to us and we can’t control them, and there is no reason for it and there is no end to it. It just happens—or it doesn’t (if you’re “lucky”). Chance, or luck, meaningless whatever, governs human existence and some have it better off than others, I guess. How should I know?

If God does not exist, then does “survival of the fittest” govern reality? Is that what determines who lives and who dies? Evolutionary choice—the strong consume the weak? If that’s the case, why not make that the acceptable norm? Why have societies that punish criminals? Why try to have just societies and pursue peace if it’s all for nothing and no reason? Why try to play god if there is no heaven above or hell below? Maybe a MadMax world makes sense, with the powerful consuming the weak.

And if God’s not there, isn’t it just natural for people to live and die—some longer than others, but to no real end and with no purpose and with the stronger butchering the weak-minded and simple people?

What I’m challenging here is the notion that all of life is just random chance. If that’s the case, then no one should complain when bad things happen. If it’s a random, meaningless life, then we have nothing to object to, nothing to hold others accountable to, and nothing to live for. Stuff just happens because it happens.

When a person is unjustly murdered, we can’t respond with outrage because it just happens. Why should we care if someone dies, if it’s all just chance and there’s no one to report to?

I realize that this does not let God off the hook for all of the tragedy that happens in this world. God does not stop all evil and suffering from happening, and he hasn’t yet eliminated evil from existence. That’s true. But what’s so interesting about the Christian story is that God does not let himself off the hook either, in fact, he actually has decided to put himself on the “hook” of human suffering. God did this in the life and death of his son, Jesus. 

Jesus entered into this world of evil and suffering, and he became a curse for us within it. He was afflicted, mistreated, imprisoned, beaten, mocked, and murdered. God in Christ knows human suffering, tragedy, evil, despair, fear, loneliness, grief, agony, deceit, frustration, and the rest. All of it. 

God took evil and suffering so seriously that he allowed for his Son to experience evil and suffering to the fullest on the cross. God allowed for pain and death to swallow him up. He took death so seriously that he didn’t just face it head on, but he went down in the grave.

Because God in Jesus Christ did that, we can trust that he not only knows what our suffering is like—and he not only empathizes with us in our pain—but he also has a decisive plan to triumph over all evil and suffering. Death did not get the last word, he conquered the grave by rising up out of it. Because of that, his plan is set into motion and we can trust that he is going to put an end to evil and suffering forever.

Maybe not in our ideal timing, but eventually, it’s going to happen. Because when Jesus came out of that grave that he went into for us, he began this great work of putting an end to suffering, tragedy, and evil for good. He started to step on evil’s ugly head and has been crushing it once and for all ever since. It’s only a matter of time until we experience the new reality that Jesus has ushered in. And that’s a whole lot more than any other view of reality can say. There’s real hope. It’s a promise. That’s a fact.

Why Do Super Bowl MVP’s Go to Disney Right After Winning?

Why do MVP players who win the Super Bowl go to Disney the next day after?

Somehow, I never noticed that this was a tradition until this year.

And I only noticed it because my beloved Rams won the Super Bowl last year, sending Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, and Aaron Donald to Disneyland with their families the day after their victory. Then this year we noticed Mahomes strolling down Main Street and the “aha!” moment happened for me.

Who started it?

It started in 1987. The year I was born.

Which makes this tradition 36 years old.

Every year since 1987, we’ve been watching the famous “what’s next” commercial.

So who first said, “I’m going to Disneyland/Disney World?” It was the New York Giants quarterback, Phil Simms after he was selected as the MVP of Super Bowl XXI. That year the Giants beat the Denver Broncos 39-20, and Simms yelled out “I’m going to go to Disney World!”

This phrase became the formulaic advertisement that we now hear year after year for almost forty years.

Follow the Money

Over dinner, the CEO of Disney and his wife met with two aviators who were world travelers. Jane Breckinridge asked the two pilots where they were going next and they said, “We’re going to Disney World.”

From that innocent conversation sprang the concept that would establish this annual tradition. Walt Disney met up with organizers of the NFL, and they together decided that the MVP would say the catchphrase post-game.

For saying this one sentence, can you guess how much that player makes?

The MVP is said to earn somewhere between 30 and 50 thousand dollars just for saying this phrase.

It’s not like any player needs that money, but whatever. I’d say it if I just won the Super Bowl too. Why not?

Unfortunately for me though, and likely anyone reading this, if we want to go to Disneyland or Disney World we will have to fork up a few thousand dollars of hard-earned money just to visit. And we won’t get to cut in line.

The Bible Teaches Us to Love Diversity

Speaking about the person Jesus, the Bible says in Colossians 1:16 that “by him all things were created.”

To put this differently, this means Jesus is God and he has made everything. From the birds to the bees, the grass and the trees, the mountains and seas—and he has made every single person who has ever lived since the beginning of time.

Everyone has been made by the same Maker.

We don’t know exactly what Jesus looked like because the Bible doesn’t give us a description of his eye color or skin tone, but we do know that he was a man of Jewish descent who lived in the first century. That means he would have been brown-skinned and to our eyes today he would have looked like he was from the Middle East.

This same Jesus who had brown-skin made people with every different kind of skin color and eye color and hair color and body shape that there is.

Pointing out God’s love for the creation he has made, C.S. Lewis once said, “God loves matter, he invented it!” Jesus truly is creative, and his creativity is on full display when we pause at an airport terminal to look around at all of the people he made.

Unfortunately, not every person who has claimed to be a follower of Jesus has loved other people the same way that Jesus loves different people.

It’s because of this tragic reason that people today tend to think the Bible is against diversity and is a white man’s religion—a religion that hungers for power and uses it to oppress others and will do just about anything it can to hold onto power.

But this is not at all what Jesus had in mind when he taught his first disciples the second greatest commandment: “love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:29-31).

Jesus’ vision for his disciples was to love others well and without qualification or prejudice. One lawyer approached Jesus and asked, “Who is my neighbor?” to which Jesus responded (I’ll paraphrase here): anyone and everyone who needs your help. You don’t get to pick and choose who your neighbors are. And you are called to love them as you love yourself. Which, probably isn’t a very difficult thing for you to do. It’s pretty easy to love our self.

If I am hungry, I eat something. If I’m thirsty, I drink something. If I’m dirty and stinky, I take a shower. If I want to drive to the beach, I drive to the beach.

Jesus calls us to apply that same care for those he has put into our lives around us. If I have a neighbor who needs something, I do what I can to help her or him because this person bears the same image that I do.

We are made in the image of our Creator. And this Creator loves creativity. He made you, he made me, and he made all of the diversity we see around us.

As one pastor of old once put it, “There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”

So, praise God today for making each one of us different.

The Bible teaches us to love diversity.

The Shame of Mental Illness

In titling this blog post, I chose the words “mental illness” instead of “mental health” because that’s how it’s talked about. People with depression, anxiety, PTSD, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are categorized as the mentally ill. Throw them all in an asylum—not just any asylum but an “insane asylum.” If someone doesn’t say it, they think it. And if you aren’t personally thinking it, then the person who is facing the struggle is thinking that you’re thinking it and so the person struggling is believing it.

Words are powerful. And so words can be harmful.

This is stigma.

And the stigma arises from a silent enemy, the culprit called shame.

Today I want to dive a bit into the shame of mental illness.

I believe that talking about mental illness in honest and healthy ways can lead us down a path toward mental health, treatment, and recovery.

I believe that the worst thing anyone can do is bury, hide, or cover up issues related to mental health. Just as I believe the worst thing anyone can do in a relationship is to bury, hide, or cover up what needs to be known in order for there to be peace and harmony in the relationship—or even reconciliation if need be.

As a Christian, I believe in an old story told very long ago. And this story informs me of some of the deeper dynamics at play surrounding mental illness.

The story goes like this.

A married couple lived in a garden, and they are described as being both naked and unashamed.

But in that garden, they were tempted and they sinned. Once they sinned, they wanted to hide—for fear of being found out. So they covered up their nakedness with fig leaves and they go into hiding. Hearing the sound of the Creator in the garden calling out, “Where are you?” they remain in hiding.

Well in the story, the God who made this couple asks them, “Who told you that you were naked?” (Genesis 3:11). The implication of this question is that their unashamed-ness has now become shamed-ness.

Shame told this couple that they were naked and needed covering up. Shame told this couple to become hush-hush about their sin, and to instead put a blanket over it and press on.

This ancient story has a lot to teach us about how we approach mental illness and journey into the realm of mental health.

We tend to do the same thing that they did when it comes to mental health. We cover up. We hide. We are hush-hush. And people suffer all the more because of it. By evaluating psychology autopsy’s, one study has shown that over 90% of those who have died by suicide had a mental health condition. By not talking about mental health, we encourage people to go it alone and ignore treatment which in turn leads to a greater risk for suicide.

Instead of burying, covering up, or hiding, we need to press into the uncomfortable if we are ever going to experience healing, or help others to experience healing.

Like the age old story, shame tells a person who is facing a mental illness that they are “crazy.” If they ask for help, others might think of them as “weak.” If they share what they are really dealing with, then they might face work discrimination or others might view them as incompetent.

Or maybe there are people who don’t believe the person and for whatever reason they just can’t accept that they’re suffering. This adds to the shame.

If they are a Christian, there might even be a deeper shame associated with a mental illness because the community they are around is telling them to trust God more. “If you take medicine, you’re not really trusting God.” “Have enough faith!” And the shame piles on.

There is a better way for all of us.

We can start to believe the message that it’s okay not to be okay. We can start to have healthier conversations about mental health. And this can lead us to share the burden we carry of our real struggles, our deepest pains, our nursing wounds—and by doing this we can begin to break down the stigma and remove the fig leaf of shame that keeps us away from experiencing healing.

Words are powerful. Let’s use our words to save and enrich lives.

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If you would like to learn more about shame, I highly recommend the work of Curt Thompson. You can read his book, The Soul of Shame, to understand more about shame and how it impacts us and the world around us.