Feb 23, 2024 |
WLSU, Prosperity and Adversity
| The Rev. Philip DeVaul
WLSU, Prosperity and Adversity
My preference would be to see evidence of God’s presence when things are going my way, and evidence of God’s absence when things are not. And I know I am not alone in this: Many people find themselves questioning the existence (or at least the efficacy) of God specifically when they see the mess we are in as a planet. The reasoning seems to go, “What kind of a God would allow all of this?” And when things are going right? “Oh, God is blessing me.”
It's worth remembering that all of Jesus’ disciples died horrible deaths; that St. Paul was jailed repeatedly, stoned, and executed; that Job, who is most famous for his faithfulness, lost every one of his children, his home, and all his livestock in one day; that Moses died in the wilderness, never setting foot in the Promised Land. It’s also worth remembering that none of these stories are told as tragedies: Every life is described as part of a larger redemptive reality at work in the world, played out in both the prosperity and the adversity of the faithful.
The truth is that pretty much every single book of the Bible was written for, by, and about people who were in tough situations – living in exile, surviving under oppressive rule, being persecuted, their lives threatened, their religion made illegal, their lifespans brief and rife with danger, famine, and pestilence.
Sometimes – especially when I’m in my head - I see things going wrong as evidence that there is no God; or that if there is a God, maybe they’re impotent, or uncaring. Yet the words of hope that have most shaped my life come from people whose lives were objectively much worse, much more difficult than mine has ever been. Faith, it seems, may be more fertile in suffering than prosperity.
It's worth remembering that all of Jesus’ disciples died horrible deaths; that St. Paul was jailed repeatedly, stoned, and executed; that Job, who is most famous for his faithfulness, lost every one of his children, his home, and all his livestock in one day; that Moses died in the wilderness, never setting foot in the Promised Land. It’s also worth remembering that none of these stories are told as tragedies: Every life is described as part of a larger redemptive reality at work in the world, played out in both the prosperity and the adversity of the faithful.
The truth is that pretty much every single book of the Bible was written for, by, and about people who were in tough situations – living in exile, surviving under oppressive rule, being persecuted, their lives threatened, their religion made illegal, their lifespans brief and rife with danger, famine, and pestilence.
Sometimes – especially when I’m in my head - I see things going wrong as evidence that there is no God; or that if there is a God, maybe they’re impotent, or uncaring. Yet the words of hope that have most shaped my life come from people whose lives were objectively much worse, much more difficult than mine has ever been. Faith, it seems, may be more fertile in suffering than prosperity.
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