The Source of Affliction

The word, “affliction” comes from roots that mean “to cast down” or “to strike.” This, in the words of e.e. comings, brings us to “the root of the root and the bud of the bud.” Who is striking me? Who is casting me down?

Who is behind my affliction?

Troubles seem to come from all directions. Some are the result of my own sinful choices or the sinful choices of others. Some are the indirect result of living in a world that has poisoned by sin from the time of Adam onward. Still come from the hand of our enemy, the devil.

“Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”
God has laid out a good path where a man can walk without hurting himself, but I often leave that path. “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.” When I leave God’s path, I become defiled—banged up, covered in dirt and leaves, hurt and ashamed. I do things that hurt myself and others.

The sins of others hurt me. We see this sort of thing every day. Alcoholics, for example, can impoverish their families for generations. Unfaithful spouses destroy entire families. Drunk drivers kill people who are just trying to buy milk or go to work.

Troubles seem to grow naturally from the soil of this world, without any connection to the actions of myself or others. The world is wonderful and ought to inspire praise and respect for the God who made it. Yet there is also a disastrous brokenness in this world that is linked, in ways that I don’t understand, to that great break that mankind made with God so long ago. This wonderful, broken world groans for deliverance from the burden of the sins of mankind. (Romans 8:21-22) In the meantime, freak accidents, natural disasters, and disease fall like rain on the just and the unjust.

And then, there’s Satan. Satan hates God. He hates mankind because we’re made in God’s image, every last one of us. He especially hates Christians because God is changing us to be more and more like his son, Jesus Christ. Satan comes only “to steal, kill, and destroy,” roaming the earth “like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.”

I began writing this book several months ago during a time of extreme trial. Although God has been faithful to meet my needs, comforting me in moments of divine reassurance, and giving me strength for each day, the trial has not ended. God has sustained me but not delivered me.

The troubles that have darkened my life for more than a year are the product of many forces: my sin, the sin of others, a genetic predisposition to anxiety and depression, and the hatred of the enemy of my soul.

But is this the whole story? Do sin, the world, and Satan have the final say in my quality of life?

Scripture says, “no.”

God made this universe and rules over every square inch of the place. No joy or sorrow can come to anyone, ever, unless God allows it. In times of affliction, no matter what we know to be true about our sin, the sin of others, the brokenness of this world, and the hatred of Satan, God has the final word in all things.

This is the nub of the nub. It is the transformational truth, the light in which all else can be seen clearly. In our trials, we are afflicted, cast down, and stricken by God himself.

This is a hard thing to accept, but scripture is very clear on this point: God is in control of every aspect of his creation at all times. This fact seems innocuous enough until you consider its implications in times of bitter suffering. Whatever trouble you’re facing, God could deliver you from that trouble completely. Instantly. In fact, he could have prevented the trouble altogether.

The fact that God chooses to allow troubles to come into our lives and chooses to allow them to remain even when we’re asking him daily for deliverance, calling out in our sleepless nights to a God who seems not to hear and not to care—this is a hard truth for even the strongest among us. Christ himself cried out, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?!”

Whether we see in our troubles connections to our own sins, the sins of others, the broken condition of this fallen world, or the direct workings of Satan himself, each trouble in our lives comes from the very hand of God. He could have prevented it and chose not to. He could deliver us this moment and he does not. My sins, the sins of others, the workings of the physical universe, and Satan himself are subject to God at all times.

Whatever may be said of the hatred of our enemy, the devil, whatever may be said of the natural consequences of our own sins and the sins of others, we must admit that no good or bad thing ever happens that God could not have prevented.

A Lesson from Job
This message comes through loud and clear in the book of Job. Satan asked God to “stretch out his hand” against this man. God does so by giving Satan permission to torment Job—“all that he has is in your power; only do not lay a hand on his person."

Job was a rich man with a large family. In a single day, he lost everything except a wife who urged him to curse God and die. Job is told about how his flocks and children were lost to thieves and disaster, but Job attributed his troubles to God himself, saying:

"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the LORD."

“The LORD has taken away.” Job blamed God for his troubles and, according to scripture, was not wrong when he did so. “Job did not sin nor charge God with wrong.”

God agrees with Job’s assessment of the situation. After Satan brought all these troubles onto Job, God asked Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him without cause.”

We see something similar in the Book of Jonah. After Jonah confessed to being the cause of God's anger displayed in a storm that threatened to destroy their ship, the sailors "took up Jonah and threw him into the sea." Five verses later, we find Jonah attributing this act to God in prayer: "You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the sea." [Jonah 1:15, 2:3]

Our troubles seem to come from a lot of directions, but God is the ruler of his universe, working in all things to bring about his own good will (Ephesians 1:11). Even sin is restrained by God in ways that make it serve the good will of God.

Satan himself is subject to God and is allowed to vent his hatred of God in only those ways that support God’s purposes. The most hateful, evil act of Satan was used by God to bring about our salvation and Satan’s own undoing.

What to Make of All This
Knowing that God works in all things for our good doesn’t mean that we can understand what he’s doing. Job’s friends tried this and failed. The vast majority of the book of Job is filled with their speculations about why God was afflicting Job, and Job’s attempts to defend himself from their accusations.

The doctrine of Job’s friends is reasonably sound. But they made the foolish mistake of trying to put God in a box. Knowing a lot of things about God doesn’t mean we can predict his next move. Even a full grasp of all truth contained in Scripture doesn’t allow us to do this. As far as the heavens are above the earth, God’s ways are above our ways.

I think the best I can do is to identify key truths to hang on to in times of trouble. They don’t work like variables in an equation that will point to a definite answer. Instead, they are like large stones that mark out the boundaries of a field, Even when I’m uncertain of the answer, I know it cannot lie beyond the bounds of these truths:

1. God is the ruler of his universe. Jesus told Pilate that he “could have no power at all against me unless it had been given you from above.” [John 19:11] There is not one square inch of the universe or one moment of time that is not God’s and his alone. No man or demon can act in any way, except that God permits. His control over his universe is complete. In him, we live and move and have our being.

2. God is good. “The Lord is righteous in all his ways, gracious in all his works.” [Psalm 145:17] It is impossible to understand the acts and mind of God, but we can be certain that he is always and everywhere zealously working good.

3. God cares. “…casting all your cares upon him, for he cares for you.” [1 Peter 5:7] God’s work in us is not merely clinical. It is the work of a loving father who is making us fit to live with him. We are saved from sin. This is true. But it is equally true that we are saved for God who loves us dearly. “Can a mother forget her own nursing baby? Not likely, but it’s possible,” says God. “Yet I will not forget you.” [Isaiah 49:15]

4. God uses our sin, the sins of others, and even Satan himself to accomplish his good will. “We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” [Romans 8:28]

These Biblical principles aren’t enough to tell us why God is afflicting us or what he’ll do next. But we do know the answer must lie somewhere within these boundaries and not beyond them.

If in our troubles we begin to think that God is not in control of his universe, that he is not good, or that he doesn’t care about us, then we’re thinking all wrong. Whatever the answer, it cannot lie outside the boundaries established by Biblical truth.

Like Job’s friends, I think I see several pieces of the puzzle clearly. Unlike them, I’ll resist the urge to put the pieces together to explain “why bad things happen to good people.” God is too big for any theological box we can ever create. No matter how much we know, God’s ways remain mysterious.

So, How is This Supposed to Make Me Feel Better?
In our trials, we have the assurance that, though we face troubles that come from our sin, from the sins of others, from the brokenness of a broken world, or from the hand of a vicious enemy, God is at work for good in all things.

Sometimes, life just feels like a bad beating. In such times, the advantages of affliction are not to be found in the nature of the rod, nor in the nature of the blows, but in the nature of him who strikes. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

In 1857, a girl died in Charleston, South Carolina at eight years of age. Her tombstone doesn’t mention the immediate cause of her death, whether disease or accident. Instead, the words are those of parents looking beyond the immediate circumstances to the broader purposes of a loving God who is working for good in all things.

It is well! Nor would we our child recall
But soothing and sweet are the tears we let fall
It is well since the Savior’s word is given
That, of such as she was, is the host of heaven

It cost us sore pangs in our grieving breast
When we laid her down in the grave to rest
But, ‘tis well, and chastened we bow to the rod
For the wielding hand was the hand of God

To ascribe to God’s chastening the death of an eight-year-old girl offends the modern sensibilities. But however we understand such a loss, the truth cannot lie beyond the stone that says “God is the ruler of his universe” nor the one that says “God is good.”

If we believe God to be all-powerful, it is intellectually dishonest to ignore his connection to the tragedy that comes to us. If we believe him to be good and loving, this connection will be very troubling. But this is the truth, whether we can handle it or not.

And rolled up in this uncomfortable truth is the comforting fact that, in their trials, God’s children are never alone. They are not simply facing troubles or being afflicted. They are being afflicted by a loving father who is with them every moment, loving them every moment, and fully committed, every moment, to their well-being.

This has become easier to understand after nearly 30 years of being a father to five children. Much of what I do on their behalf breaks my heart and theirs. I do what would be much easier to leave undone because I love them.

God is never nearer to us than in our suffering. It is God himself who brought us to this place and he is there with us, loving us with an everlasting love.

In our affliction, we are not alone.

God is with us and is at every moment zealously working in us to make us like his son. He uses even sin, Satan, and this fallen world to bring about his perfect will. John Newton wrote the following to a friend:

I pray that you may be enabled more and more to honour the Lord by believing His promise: for He is not like a man that should fail or change, or be prevented by anything unforeseen from doing what He has said. And yet we find it easier to trust to worms than to the God of truth. Is it not so with you? And I can assure you it is often so with me. But here is the mercy, that His ways are above ours, as the heavens are higher than the earth. Though we are foolish and unbelieving, He remains faithful; He will not deny Himself. I recommend to you especially that promise of God, which is so comprehensive that it takes in all our concernments, I mean, that all things shall work together for good. How hard is it to believe, that not only those things which are grievous to the flesh, but even those things which draw forth our corruptions, and discover to us what is in our hearts, and fill us with guilt and shame, should in the issue work for our good! Yet the Lord has said it. All your pains and trials, all that befalls you in your own person, or that affects you upon the account of others, shall in the end prove to your advantage. And your peace does not depend upon any change of circumstance which may appear desirable, but in having your will bowed to the Lord's will, and made willing to submit all to His disposal and management. Pray for this, and wait patiently for Him, and He will do it. Be not surprised to find yourself poor, helpless, and vile; all whom He favours and teaches will find themselves so. The more grace increases, the more we shall see to abase us in our own eyes; and this will make the Saviour and His salvation more precious to us. He takes His own wise methods to humble you, and to prove you, and I am sure He will do you good in the end.

The real question in times of affliction isn’t “what have I done to cause this pain?” or “why does God allow this person to do this to me?”

The real question is this: can God be trusted?

This is “the bud of the bud.”

In times of affliction that are exacerbated by the lies, threats, and accusations of the devil, remember that "God is not dead nor doth he sleep."

He can be trusted.