Why do bad things happen? The discussion
- Is it wrong to rationalize suffering after the fact ('that's why God did that')?
- Does God micromanage every detail of life, or does he intervene when asked?
Reacting to the clip, the hosts wrestle with theodicy. Stories include a host's police ride-alongs to notify families of sudden deaths -- grandparents told of a grandson's car wreck, parents whose infant died in the night and were told by a self-described believer it was punishment for living together unmarried. They land on: God is sovereign yet yields to human will; we live in a fallen world (Adam and Eve) where 'there are no good people' (illustrated with a shared-pool-turned-cesspool analogy); 'why did you let my baby die?' differs from 'why did you kill my baby?'; 'God's plan' language often comforts us more than it describes reality; prayer is genuinely effective (Revelation's throne room: prayers of the saints as smoke, lightning and thunder); not every day is a 'Moses day' (Philip and the eunuch was one story, not his whole life); and finite minds rationalize suffering after the fact -- 'God's giant chessboard' -- which a steady prayer life keeps in perspective. A hospital-visit story (a woman given a 10% chance against widespread cancer) grounds the abstraction.
More on Grief
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Holy Spirit experience: healing, cessationism, and testing the spirits
- Is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today?
The central hard question: is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today, and what does it mean for a follower of Jesus?
From No. 593 · Do You Hear What I Hear
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Dear LFTP 3: Mom's false teeth
- What should the family do with their late mother's false teeth?
Mike reads the letter: the family found their late mother's false teeth — creepy to keep, wrong to discard?
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
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Dear LFTP: should I attend my murdered niece's funeral?
- Should I attend my murdered niece's funeral after thirty years of family estrangement?
Mike reads a letter from a woman estranged from her brother's family for thirty years whose niece was murdered by her husband in a murder-suicide.
From No. 587 · Coffee After Sunday
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Dear LFTP: AA member who witnessed a life-support withdrawal
- How do I come to terms with accidentally witnessing a fellow AA member's life-support withdrawal?
An AA member writes that while visiting a hospitalized fellow member with cookies, he arrived at the exact moment doctors withdrew life support and witnessed the family's raw grief; he now fears he intruded and caused harm.
From No. 568 · Like Jesus