I don’t go to Sunday School intending to break up fist fights, but it’s happened a time or two.
After the most recent altercation, one of the offending parties flung himself down on his face in the grass and sobbed, “My life is so horrible!”
He detailed the reasons why, and I couldn’t disagree. This wasn’t just a case of angsty teen. This boy had genuine reasons for despair.
However, we had just been studying Genesis 1. I had just taught him that God made him for a purpose. God invites us to know Him. God includes us in His plan.
What about when His plan is horrible?
I stared wide-eyed again at that question later in the week when I visited several of my Sunday School children just after they learned that their father had passed away. Hugs, tears, promises of help- none of it eases a child’s pain when he has lost a parent to addiction.
No graveside service, no memorial shrine, no candle lit can adequately commemorate the child’s pain. None of it promotes his healing or comfort. Where is God? the children ask. Is this His plan? Why is it so horrible?
There is a God who can answer the questions we ask about why His plan is so horrible.
He doesn’t flinch or shy away, but gives an honest answer to those who have sought Him with painful, faltering steps. When we have failed or fallen, He, like a Good Shepherd, has lifted us to His shoulders and carried us.
He has taken us to the scene where He asked the very same question: “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me. All things are possible for You. Remove this cup from Me…”
Yet, for Jesus, there was a difference. He faced the horrible. He asked for it to be taken away, but then, He entrusted Himself to the One who judges justly. He said, “Yet not my will but Yours be done.”
God’s will, His plan, led Jesus through the horrors of the crucifixion. It seemed horrible. It confused the disciples. It grieved those who loved Jesus. It grieved Jesus, but He trusted God.
Later, the disciple Peter would tell the persecuted Christians, “Let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator.”
His plan may seem horrible, but God’s faithfulness makes it good.
How do I know? Ask Jesus.
He is living proof that God works wonders- even in the midst of the horrible.
He lives to intercede for us, especially when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death. “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too.”
He is walking beside every suffering child who reaches out to Him for help, and He is abundantly able to answer their every question and meet their every need because He is good.
Sarah Dixon Young 