Suffering & Mercy
In 2015, I came back from living in the Middle East broken and confused. The Israel/Gaza war of 2014 left over 2,000 people dead and thousands more injured 40 miles away from where I was living in the West Bank. During that time, a missile landed in my neighborhood walking distance from my house. Towards the end of the year, when I traveled to North Israel, I could hear the bombs of ISIS in Syria. I witnessed more racial discrimination than I’ve ever seen in my life. I lived in a city behind a 25 foot concrete wall that I could pass through at my leisure while my Arab friends could not. To me, all of these things were jarring. To the locals, they were normal. This is life to them. As I saw and experienced all of these things, I became angry and bitter. Where in the world is God in all of this?
When I landed back in Arkansas that June, I had countless conversations about my struggle with this. The responses I got varied from knowing sympathy, to deep discussions about man's free will and God's sovereignty. When I entered into these theological conversations, I was always left wanting. I left agitated and angry. There had to be something better than these silly ideas we were talking in circles about. It mattered deeply to me. While the person I chatted with went home and made dinner, I went home and wept over the turmoil I was feeling about this.
I needed answers and I wasn’t getting them from debating theology. Ironically enough, I was equally unsatisfied with the, “we will never know on this side of eternity” trick. While some conversations felt like a ride on a never ending merry-go-round, the others felt like a dismissal.
I strongly believe having a solid theological foundation on suffering is of utmost importance, at the same time, though, theology outside of intimacy with Jesus is just noise. If there is no connection, there is no rest. My only hope was for God himself to have something more to say to me to satisfy my tantrum.
And, in his mercy, he did.
He sat with me in my grief and met me there.
He kept me when I didn’t want to be kept.
He didn’t get angry when I was angry.
He opened the door of communication time and time again when I wanted to pull it shut.
As I became willing and more brave, I began to bring my painful questions to him, instead of shut him out. It’s in that sacred space that he answers - not answering my questions of his character, but answering my pain beneath the question. Though I was grieving the reality of war and racism and injustice, I was really asking, “God, do you love your people?” I was asking, “God, are you really trustworthy with things that are as precious as human life?” These deep questions he will answer, and answer abundantly.
So as we wrestle with faith and plunge into grief, we have nothing to fear if we do it with Jesus. He is the one to lead us through the murky waters and into rest. It may not be the rest we set out looking for, and the path to get there may not look as pretty as we would like, but it’s the only way. It is also the best way. Taking an unmapped journey with the Father is the way of intimacy, connection, and dependance. There is no satisfaction or rest outside of intimacy. There is only one place, one man, that can say what we cannot and heal what we cannot - and him we have.