Is God Playing a Cruel Trick on You?

Is God Playing a Cruel Trick on You?

I entered the crowded second floor funeral parlor to witness agonizing grief.  The decedent died recently after having given birth to her only child who survived though he was born prematurely.  His mother whom he will not meet nor will he know deeply desired two things in life.   Her wedding day and the beginning of her brief marriage preceded his birth by four years.  At thirty-six years of age, she forsook increasing social acceptability of living together before marriage and having children out of wedlock.  She waited for providentially favorable circumstances to fulfill her heartfelt dreams.  In the starkest irony, she died at the zenith of her short life.  The cruelty of the circumstances surrounding her death compounded the grief and despair that filled that room on a bitter autumn morning.

Bewilderment adequately describes the reaction of her husband, mother, siblings, extended relatives, coworkers and circle of friends.  Shakespeare places on the lips of Macbeth this sobering and perhaps cynical yet viciously real saying, “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.  It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  (Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5, Lines 24-28)  As the decedent’s husband glanced at her bridal photo that adorned her coffin, he understandably suspected he was in the worst nightmare.  Her mother silently reflected on the joy of her birth nearly four decades previously.  Could she ever imagine on that day she would one day sit in a funeral chapel and watch the lifeless body of her little girl?  Possibly, this aggrieved mother who sat in the despicably unnatural position of having to bury her daughter thought to herself, “Is God playing a cruel trick on me?”

How could Almighty God simultaneously permit her daughter’s death as He allows her to receive the answers to her most heartfelt prayers?  Why did the nurses focus with tunnel vision on the condition of the premature infant and failed to detect the rising blood pressure of his mother?  With years of experience in obstetrics and gynecology, did they not have a protocol to ascertain the blood clot that formed and eventuated in her death two days following delivery?  There are several other very difficult questions which this mother could ask.  A few of them are too harsh to write.  Ponder them in the deep recesses of your mind.  Nonetheless, these hard questions personalize the enduring theological problem of theodicy.  How do we reconcile the existence of an Infinite and Supreme Being who possesses perfect knowledge, unlimited power, inherent goodness and complete presence with prevalent evil in the world?  This mother’s and husband’s experience in grief depicts the common personal affects and effects of these irreconcilable realities.  I suspect you have your own unique version of the question, “Is God playing a cruel trick on me?”

This question manifests in myriad forms within daily experiences.  If you prayed for a mate, how could God not have prevented the divorce that continuously scars you as a failure in love?  Did He not know that you would be a victim of unrequited love?  The person whom you love actually never regarded you with equal respect and consideration.  Can you recoup the years of loss and waste on a job where you were never appreciated?  What if you were born as a full-term, healthy baby to parents who simply lacked capacity for parenthood?  Compounding insult with injury, you grow up in an impoverished environment where people refuse to celebrate and reward your intelligence, gifts and abilities because your fierce ambition threatens their emotional well-being.  Nevertheless, you by God’s grace surmount the impediments of your formative years only to find yourself professionally, relationally and personally stilted at mid-life.  How could God bless you with multidimensional gifts but fail to provide a venue to exercise them?  Whether in grief, failure or some other existential crisis, you perpetually ask, “Is God playing a cruel trick on me?”

I attended the family visitation hour prior to the funeral mass to support the mother and her youngest daughter both of whom attend the church where I serve as pastor.  Quietly, I walked into the room, signed the guest register and silently walked to a chair adjacent to a corner.  I desired to offer comfort with my presence.  The gravity of grief in the room made any pronouncements particularly church clichés superfluous.  The assembled mourners wanted a reversal of fortunes and restoration of life prior to the decedent’s sudden, shocking and unexpected death.  In His sovereignty and providence, Almighty God chose to forego this option of supernaturally altering or miraculously suspending natural law.  Surprisingly, I was recalled from a flight of meditation as a relative came to ask me to pray at the mother’s request.  I assured the gathering of mourners that I would not offer any facile answers to their agonizing and very painful questions.

Long before Shakespeare forthright and challenging words in Macbeth, Job who suffers incalculable loss within God’s permissive will asked Almighty God, “Do you have eyes of flesh?  Do you see as a mortal sees?”  (Job 10:4)  Resisting any temptation toward eloquence or profundity, I unreservedly encouraged the fellowship of mourners to ask their hard questions of Almighty God.  I further affirmed their anger just as Job’s indignation provided a pathway for a greater revelation of God’s mysterious and inexplicable ways.  I encouraged them to discard any religious superstitions and arbitrary conceptualizations of how they should feel.  There is not a right way to grieve a tragic and bewildering loss of a loved one!  Aloud, I asked the question, “Is God playing a cruel joke on me?”  Humbly and genuinely, I asked them to listen for an answer.