One of my favourite Biblical Scholars and prolific bloggers is Ben Witherington III. Frequent readers of this blog will note that his name, and his thoughts have shown up in these posts frequently in the time I've been blogging and today it saddens me that I have occasion to share one of his posts again.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/bibleandculture/2012/01/24/good-grief-soundings-part-one/
It saddens me not because of what he says in this post - truly it is a poignant and moving proclamation of what I understand to be the truth of the character of God - but because of the circumstances that prompted it. Dr. Witherington and his family recently and suddenly lost his daughter Christy to a pulmonary embolism. She was my age - cut down in the prime of her life and over the past week Dr. Witherington has been using his blog as a place to process his pain and loss with the aim of honouring her memory and allowing God to use this tragedy for redemptive purposes.
As a pastor I have often, in the midst of people's grief, been asked the questions of theodicy that no one is truly able to answer; and while I believe that the true answer to the age old question of why good people suffer, and why tragedies strike good people who love the Lord is in the category of those questions that we will never be able to fully grasp (I have serious questions if the expectation of understanding these things as finite beings will ever be fully realized even in the eschaton) - I think that Dr. Witherington's profession of faith in a good, loving, compassionate and sovereign God is as close to that answer as I may have heard.
I'd encourage you to click over to read this post and appreciate in reading it the great strength it takes at a time like this to say these things; but more than that, to appreciate the great God who is worthy of having these things said of Him.
This is the God that I worship.
Blessings,
Chris
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