From Jim McGuiggan... Good luck Bad luck

Good luck Bad luck

Non-believers understandably dispute the believer’s claim that God answers prayers. The Christian’s claim has to be examined within certain parameters and since the non-believer can’t or won’t (or both) share some of the convictions that the Christian takes as "givens" there no point at which to meet. In a sense, they’re using different dictionaries.

The Christian says, "I prayed to God to heal my wife and bring her through a serious illness and she got better." The non-believer says, "I didn’t pray for my wife and she overcame a serious illness. Healing or non-healing is a ‘natural event’. Millions pray for healing and don’t get better. Good people go under and thugs get better. It’s a lottery. If you’re lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time and you get the right treatment at the right moment before the disease gets too serious you get better." And the non-believer goes on to say, "You notice that fewer prayers are answered where there is less medicine, fewer hospitals and doctors, less food and more microbes?" The believer "knows" the non-believer is wrong because the non-believer doesn’t have the big picture and is arguing only on the basis of conflicting experiential data. The non-believer attributes all the blessings to "good luck".

And what do many believers do? They use the non-believers arguments to prove God doesn’t bring judgement on humanity for its sinfulness. You have sensitive and caring people like Mark Baker talking shallow nonsense and saying that God doesn’t send trouble and calamity on the world "because God isn’t like that." He’s loving and kind and gentle and wants to bless us all therefore he couldn’t bring calamity on us. Wouldn’t you wonder that Mark with a Bible in his hand could talk that way? He says sweet and kind things and thinks that that will help people come to terms with these awful experiences. This is not only untrue to scripture and the character of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, it debilitates people!

Mark Baker makes the very arguments that non-believers have been making for years and thinks he’s helping people. Imagine him telling Amos (see chapter 4) that God doesn’t do such things. Imagine Mark telling Habakkuk, who is feeling very ill because God has told him what he (God), is about to do through a vicious invading army (the whole short book of Habakkuk, and especially chapter 3), that God doesn’t do such things.

And so what do we make of these hurricanes and earthquakes and famines and such? It’s just bad luck? Why would we say it was bad luck? Because good people die in them and thugs live on to oppress, because church buildings are wrecked and brothels remain standing, because babies are left parent-less and drug barons sell even more booze and other drugs?

Because there are random elements in all this are we to say God is not in it? If God sends judgement on humanity must it be on every human at the same time? If he sends judgement on humanity must it hurt only the guilty? Does God not know that the famine he sends on Israel will kill innocent little babies and righteous adults? Does God not know that there are many other nations more wicked than Israel (or at least as wicked) and that they are prospering because God is blessing them with food and water and clothing and so much more?

Must we conclude that God sends no judgements on humanity? None at all? But if he sends them how will we recognize them? If his judgement falls on Ireland or Honduras then innocent children will go to the wall along with righteous grown ups. What are we to say then? Should we deny his judgement on any particular place because he isn’t at that moment judging every other place?

And will God not put the innocent to grief as part of his voice of judgement against a guilty world? He did it in the Christ and did it for the world’s awakening and redemption! And what if it’s the case that God puts innocents to grief in the course of his judgements on a guilty human family and we call it bad luck? What if instead of linking it immediately with the earnest and gracious God who wants to open ours eyes to eternal life we say "the Devil did it" or "just bad luck"? Might we not only be cheapening the pains and losses of these hurting people but might we not be shutting the ears of people to the voice of God?

Is this a complex matter? Absolutely! But that’s all the more reason we should think it through and look for the bigger picture. God forgive us, non-believers and hurting people have enough to contend with without believers pouring out shallow drivel, even if it is well-intentioned. We think if we keep saying that God is a heavenly sweetheart and keep on crooning romantic ballads about him that that will help people face life’s calamities. It’ll do no such thing. The wooing note has its place but even Jesus had his Matthew 23.

Non-believers look at God’s blessings (with all the random elements that are part of the structure around them) and talk of "good luck". Some believers look at God’s judgements (with all the random elements that are part of the structure around them) and talk of "bad luck". When Moses asked the God who was sending him to Egypt to bring blessing in and through cursing—when Moses asked him for a name he wasn’t told, "Tell them Luck sent you."

©2004 Jim McGuiggan. All materials are free to be copied and used as long as money is not being made.

Many thanks to brother Ed Healy, for allowing me to post from his website, the abiding word.com.