Why has God ordained suffering?  This is our question today.  I have answered this question fully in my book, The Divine Decrees, but I was moved by a recent article I read by Sam Stoms and had to talk about it.  This deals with the face value level for why God has ordained for His saints to under go suffering and hard sanctification.  First I will post the article Sam Storms wrote. (It is only about half of the article)  Then I will post a letter I wrote a friend concerning this article.

"God's Design in our Distress  (2 Cor. 1.8-11)
by: Sam Storms, Aug 9, 2007

 (http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/)

          Sometime between the writing of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, most likely no earlier than the spring of 55 a.d. and no later than the summer or fall of 56 a.d., Paul had what he considered a singular and altogether unique brush with death that transformed his perspective on life and ministry and, above all, his relationship with God.

          Twice in v. 8 he uses a word, best translated "beyond" (huper), that indicates he viewed this experience as unparalleled. When one recalls his statement in Philippians 4:13 ("I can do all things through him who strengthens me"), what he describes in 2 Corinthians must assuredly have been in a category unto itself in terms of its severity and potential for ending Paul's life...  

          I'm convinced that Paul has in view some recurrent illness, a painful and obviously life-threatening affliction, the burden of which was so severe as to expel all hope of survival...

          Whether we face physical illness or financial stress or relational disappointments, we find it hard to see in it anything remotely approaching a "purpose" or "reason". Such disillusioning experiences strike us as random and senseless and lacking all value. Often the best we can do is write it off as an attack of the enemy, never discerning the divine design in our distress.

          But as overwhelming, excessive, and burdensome as this brush with death was for Paul, he knew that God was in it! The point of it all, says Paul, "was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (v. 9b). For those who regard all such anguish and suffering as pointless, this may come as a considerable shock.

          One can almost hear Paul saying to himself before he ever said it to the Corinthians: "I've grown too self-reliant. I've become accustomed to trusting in my own charisma, my education, my reputation, my depth of theological insight. I'm dangerously close to taking credit for what only God can do. I'm on the brink of blasphemy! This is no small matter. Trusting in oneself is an affront to God, and he won't have it!"

          How far will God go to ensure that Paul doesn't trust in himself and his own skills and spiritual savvy? How seriously does God regard this tendency in the human heart, whether Paul's or yours or mine? To what lengths will he go to guarantee that he alone gets the glory? In Paul's case, God knocked out every man-made prop and reduced him to utter despair....

        No one has expressed this more vividly and to the point than James Denney. I take the liberty here of citing him at length. Resist the temptation to skip over this paragraph. It is truly profound: 

        "It is natural . . . for us to trust in ourselves. It is so natural, and so confirmed by the habits of a lifetime, that no ordinary difficulties or perplexities avail to break us of it. It takes all God can do to root up our self-confidence. He must reduce us to despair; He must bring us to such an extremity that the one voice we have in our hearts, the one voice that cries to us wherever we look round for help, is death, death, death. It is out of this despair that the superhuman hope is born. It is out of this abject helplessness that the soul learns to look up with new trust to God. . . . How do most of us attain to any faith in Providence? Is it not by proving, through numberless experiments, that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps? Is it not by coming, again and again, to the limit of our resources, and being compelled to feel that unless there is a wisdom and a love at work on our behalf, immeasurably wiser and more benign than our own, life is a moral chaos? . . . Only desperation opens our eyes to God's love."

          Some are bothered by this, believing that God's orchestration of Paul's affliction was a high price the apostle was forced to pay by an insensitive and selfish God whose only concern was to glorify himself. May it never be!

          God's seeking his glory in Paul's trust was the most loving and tender-hearted thing he could ever have done for the apostle! For in orchestrating these events to undermine Paul's self-reliance he made it possible for him to find satisfaction in the One who will never fail or falter or prove untrustworthy.  

        There is incomparable joy for our souls in learning to rest in God, not ourselves, in experiencing divine strength, not human weakness. Paul's affliction, as severe and unsettling as it initially may have been (or even continued to be), was the most effective way to lead him to drink from a reservoir of rest and delight and sustaining grace that will never run dry." (http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/)

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         Below is my response to a friend, whom I had forward this article of Sam Storms.  My friend replied back by saying he was glad and encouraged I had sent it to him.  Here is my letter back to him.  For his sake I will just call him friend.

Dear: Friend

I am glad it encouraged you, as it did me.

          It is good theology like this that does two things for me.  First, it reminds me that my first priority as a Child of God is sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ, or at the foot of the cross, where I daily, if not hourly, face up to my sin and find true fellowship with God, as he personally shares the sureness of His bloodshed and soft mercies to me.   I dare say, is this not the heart of what we, modern day evangelicals call relationship with our Good God?   May this general term not lead us to forget the true specifies-ness of what it means to Know and Worship our God and Father, mercy.  To the "praise of the Glory of His Grace", for Christ became a servant so that the "Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy."  What is eternal life: "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ."  And how did Christ say this knowing Him in relationship in Heaven would look like, "Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory."

           This brings me to my second thing this good theology reminds of.   It reminds me of how much I hate this prosperity teaching in America.   If the prosperity gospel is true, then Paul surely got ripped off.   Look at all the hardship and poverty he took.   Was it because he did not give enough in tithes?  I dare say not.   Paul simply possessed his God as truly as His first love and desire!   For if knowing God, in the most intense personal relationship possible is your goal, and you came to realize that God, in His wisdom has temporarily ordained all His saints to go through some sort of suffering on earth, so that this goal of communion is best accomplished, then who I ask would not welcome any suffering in their life, so that they might know God better.  

          The persons who preach the prosperity gospel expose themselves to me that their highest goal is not to know and worship their God in the most intense way possible, but something else has stolen that chief desire.  Standing the on ground that God's relationship primarily consists in Him showing His beauty and grace to us as we enjoy Him and worship Him, I will say this:  What good is it if God was to enter into the most intimate relationship possible with us, if we had the eye sight of a mole?  God's relationship would be worthless to any creature who does not possess the ability to see the personal Glory of God that He would show them.   What good would it be for a blind man to marry Miss. America if he could not see her?  Our suffering one earth as saints, who now experience our "wholeness" in part but in heaven in full, is the thing that sharpens our vision to see heavens true beauty.  Yes, our suffering as forgiven enemies of God, is the best vision sharpener that any creature will have ever experienced, not even the angels' vision will be as sharp as blood washed saints are.  Therefore, let us all welcome any suffering our Good God will send us so that we might become more increasingly aware of all our sin in true repentance, knowing this will lead us to Heaven to see our beloved God with vision better than 20/20!  The question is this: will the suffering in our lives reveal that beholding and worshiping our Good God is our Chief and supreme love, or something else.

Sincerely Yours in Christ: Oshea Davis