This One Was Hard.

Why does God require/allow innocent babies to be born with life threatening conditions? Anytime anyone whether they be a believer or a non believer ask this question, I want to run and hide. It is a terribly tough question that seemingly has no good answer. I finally had enough faith in my ability to handle any answer God might offer me. This is the direction He offered my and I in turn offer it to you. As Rod Serling would say, "For your approval".

As horrible as it sounds, death is a part of life and even the death of a child can serve the Kingdom of God. Our fear of death is a very human thing and Christ brought ministry to relieve us of that fear by teaching Mary and Martha how God uses the sickness of their brother to open up their minds to the fullness of love He has for them. Mary and Martha reached out to Christ that He might come and save Lazarus from death.

John 11:1-4
11:1 Now a certain man was sick, whose name was Lazarus, of the town of Bethany
11:2 And Mary, his sister, who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, lived with her sister Martha, in whose house her brother Lazarus was sick.
11:3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. 
11:4 And when Jesus heard he was sick, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

He answer to their request by admonishing them to have full faith in God. 

John 11:40-42
11:40 Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
11:41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus
lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
11:42 And I knew that thou hearest me always; but because of the people which stand by I
said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

How should this lesson open our eyes to why God might cause an innocent child to suffer and die for no apparent reason? Short answer is that God uses these untimely
deaths to open our hearts to the need we have for Him, His ways, and His Kingdom. First thing He wants us to consider as we watch a child suffer and die is that however we view it; in God life is everlasting.

DC 22:23b and there is no end to my works, neither to my words; for this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality, and eternal life of man.

The most heartbreaking event we can face is the suffering of a child. In truth the world is a place of corruption and a child is as close to innocence as we ever see in this world. For them to suffer is truly tragic. Sometimes we can justify it in our hearts because the suffering is caused by abuse or thoughtless acts of neglect. In our hearts, someone will pay for the harm they did if not in this life then in the next. The hard ones are those that
are taken by what some will term acts of God. Accidents, natural disasters, and disease leave us no one to blame for what has happened. In those cases the world seeks to
blame God.

The good news is that God did not leave us here to suffer pointlessly. Sadly yes, the innocent suffer sometimes even at the hand of God. Consider Job or how about the
children that around previous to the flood. Understand please that God can and will redeem those that suffer. Our loving Father has a perfect plan to use that suffering to accomplish His threefold purpose.

1. He uses pain and suffering to draw us to Himself so that we will cling to Him.
2. He strengthens our faith in the same way a broken bone is stronger after it heals that it was before the break occurred.
3. Finally God allows our suffering to cause us to look away from this world and realize deep within ourselves the reason our covenant labor for Zion is so important.
Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble”, and He wants us straightaway to come to Him and involve him in what we need.

John 16:33:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world
 
Trials are not something unusual in life; they are part of what it means to be human in a fallen world. In Christ we have an anchor that holds fast in all the storms of life, but, if we never sail into those storms, how would we know that? It is in times of despair and sorrow that we reach out to Him, and, if we are His children, we always find Him there waiting to comfort and uphold us through it all. In this way, God proves His faithfulness to us. He wants us to learn and grow and by comforting us He affords us an example of what we can do for others that are suffering. In this we become one with Him.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 
1:3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
1:4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
 
Our faith needs to be a growing thriving part of our relationship with God. He knows and we learn that suffering and pain are inevitable in this life. In His strength we learn how to respond to suffering, especially when we are innocent of wrongdoing. If we allow our faith in God and our trust in His ways to open our hearts, we can possess a faith so strong and genuine that others will reach out to the Father in hope that they too can add this faith to their life.

Romans 1:8 First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ, that you all are steadfast, and your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

In the presence of our covenant and the strength His Holy Spirit, we can come through all trials with our faith intact. In fact, having been tested by fire we will be lifted up to give praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
 
Romans 4:7 Saying, Blessed are they through faith whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

Finally, God uses trials to take our eyes off this world and turn them to the next. The Bible continually exhorts us to not get caught up in the things of this world but to look forward to the world to come. Yes the innocent suffer in this world, but we must remember, this world is temporary. God and the Kingdom are both eternal. It is in striving for that Kingdom that we begin to understand the importance of the labor even We are faced with in times of suffering.

John 18:36 Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is my kingdom not from hence.

With faith in God and a belief in all that Christ ministered to the world, we lose the need to view things of this life whether good or bad, as the end of the story. Even the sufferings we endure, as terrible as they can be, “are not worth comparing with the glory
that will be revealed in us”

Romans 8:19-21
8:19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the son of God.
8:20 For the creature was made subject to tribulation not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected it in hope;
21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

If we will allow ourselves to let the Spirit apply God to all that we see, we will come to grow towards a full understanding of God, HIs ways, His Kingdom, and the need we have for that Kingdom in our lives

John 9:1-3
9:1 And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man, which was blind from his birth.
9:2 And his disciples asked him saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?
9:3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him

In the verses following this passages Christ healed the man and gave him sight. In the subsequent verses it became clear that the man not only received site, he gained a testimony of the love of God, and the need to share that testimony with all that would hear. God seeks to have us come to Him and grow to become a part of His Kingdom. This gives me cause to me bare my testimony of how good God is at what He does to us, with us, and for us and how He shared the Kingdom with me.

At two and a half my oldest, Matt was diagnosed with leukemia. To say the world dropped away from me all of a sudden would be to put it mildly. I had no idea he was
even sick, let alone ill unto death. I remember talking with God looking out of a 4th floor window of building D at KU Med Center asking Him what do I do? How is this even fair to the boy, his mother, and me? Then God reached out."Yes, it's a hard thing, He said, but rest assured everything with Matt will be OK. If he
recovers he'll go home with you and his mother and he will be fine. If he fails succumbs to the disease, he'll come home with me and he will still be fine. He just won't be with you.

Brethren, that changed my outlook on life and death forever. Some have claimed that I have become calloused and unfeeling about death, but in reality God taught me the same thing Christ taught Martha and Mary about their brother Lazarus. If he stays with you, he's ok, but if he comes to me he's still ok he just not with you. Praise God for that understanding. Understand also the far-reaching effect that Matt's illness had on him, his Mom, and myself. Weak marriages will not withstand the rigors of a disease like Matt had. We were divorced and I became a much different man. I changed careers, went wild for
about two years, found Karen, and made a second attempt at family life. In the process I was introduced to the fullness of the Gospel. In the process of coming to terms with the
 possibility of such a place a Zion, I got very involved with ideals and the politics of unions. I had no idea what God was preparing me for, but this Kingdom building not a bad way to spend a life.

Matts mom found herself a career with the federal government and is living a "happily ever after" with a man she loves; and that is wonderful
 
Matt came away from this whole situation with such a understanding of pain, suffering, and hope that, on his own managed to get a diploma from the Naval Academy at Annapolis and a masters degree in administration from Old Dominion and now works for the Federal Government doing something for the Navy that he can tell me nothing about. He is also nearly 50 years in remission, praise God.

To tie all of this together I seek that we all begin to accept that even when it comes to the suffering of a child. God's got everything under control. In other words we can trust Him, 'cause HE really does know what he is doing. Remember those things that are of God tell of the glory of God, the ways of His Kingdom, and the love of God for all HIs children. Even if it hurts for a while, "it's gonna be OK".