I probably reflect on this verse more than any other:
Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Exodus 4:11
It is a hard statement. God doesn’t say that he allows disability to happen. God says he does it.
As Pastor John was preaching yesterday (I’m sure it will be up on Desiring God by mid-day), I was so grateful to God that he not only allowed me to see that the above verse is true.
He also let me see it is beautiful.
The Works of God 
This is a truth that I find hard to grapple with – God allowing something or God actually doing something that causes us pain. My brother committed suicide when I was 17 and my dad died of lung cancer when I was only 11. These 2 things in my life have caused me to question – Did God allow it or did God do it? I still feel like I don’t know the answer that question. I think many times I have concluded that God allowed it to happen. This is probably different though than someone being born with disabilities. They didn’t make choices that made them that way. God did make them that way. “My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret. Intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance…” David knew that God knew everything about his frame. It’s hard to understand why bad things like suicide happen. I wonder what your take is on it?
What you have described are both extraordinarily hard things. My only hope in replying is with a prayer that God gives me something worthwhile, and that the Holy Spirit would use it to reveal more of himself. Oh, Lord, please make it so!
My wife lives with Stage IV breast cancer which we are told, statistically, will return and kill her – and my daughter is currently 11 years old. These are not simply academic questions you have posed and are living with.
Do I see God as sovereign over all things? Yes, I do. And my wife does as well, alerting people to how she feels about this issue by clearly stating that God gave her cancer, and that he is good in all that does. Why do I (and she) take comfort is such a thing?
For one, it has made us really serious about this life and what it means to be a Christian. Paul wrote, after all his afflictions were well documented, that “this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” As a Christian hedonist, I want to experience that eternal weight of glory – experiencing joy with Jesus forever.
Before my son was born I took a legalist’s view of reality – if I were good enough, God would let me in. But he gave me a boy with significant disabilities to force me to consider if I was ‘good enough.’ Not only did he show me I wasn’t good, he showed me I was entirely lost in my sin, and then showed me the extraordinary beauty of Jesus Christ. And God continues to use that boy, as disabled as he is, for the Kingdom.
When the Stage IV cancer showed up eight years later, it was built on that unshakable certainty that God, who does all things for his glory and for my good, would provide all that I need, and my wife needs, and my children need. It is a supernatural conclusion, given by the Holy Spirit.
Suicide does not change that fact of God’s sovereignty. Pastor John has three funeral meditations for people who have died via their own hand, and they all include great opportunities to hope in this God. You can read all three here: http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TopicIndex/118_Suicide/
I would particularly recommend Pastor John’s message at Luke Anderson’s funeral, where he concludes with this:
“My conclusion is this: God loved Lazarus and his family and took him out of heaven in order to show the power of Christ over death. And God loved Luke and his family and took him out of the world to show the preciousness of Christ over life. . . Luke has not died in vain. The glory of God is being revealed. There are some in this room who will date their awakening to the glory of Christ to this day.”
I would also recommend Chapter 4 from Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, which can be read online for free here: http://www.desiringgod.org/media/pdf/books_bssg/books_bssg.pdf
Thanks for your post, and for giving me an opportunity to respond to it.
Wow, that link is bad. My web address is not right on my name. It’s actually: http://www.crossdrivenhome.com.
Thank you so much for responding. I have read several “views” of why God does what He does, with no real explanation. One of the books i read was by Dobson and basically ended with a statement about how God is God and we can’t understand Him. It never really answered the question of if God allowed it or did it. So I do appreciate whatever views actually address this. Both my brother and my dad were not Christians which makes this something I grapple with — how can their deaths and them going to hell be Sovereign? I have yet to be at peace with it, but I’m thankful for you giving me some resources and pointing me to them.
Michelle, when I was a young adult my 23-year-old sister died of meningitis in five days. I remember how my heart ached in that moment for someone to say to me, “God knew what he was doing” and how comforting it was that my well-taught friends did.
She died over 25 years ago now, and I still don’t know if she was a believer. But one truth that God has been gradually opening my eyes to is that when I do find out the answer to that question, I will glorify God. He will reveal himself and his dealings with her (and me) in all their perfection — he is incapable of imperfection — and in that moment I will see it as beautiful and fall at his feet in worship. Meditating on this has helped me a great deal. So much of our pain in losing unbelieving loved ones is anticipating their eternal pain. But I don’t think God calls us to carry that burden after they die. He calls us to trust him, and rest in him, and believe him when he says “for those who love God, all things [all things, even the deaths of unbelieving loved ones] work together for good” (Rom. 8:28).
Thanks Carol for sharing that with me. You make good points. I just have to come to peace with it. There are long periods of time where I think I’m ok, but then I start dwelling on it all and it just feels so sad and the questions continue to come. John Piper was asked a question once and I watched it on YouTube about predestination, I think it was and how God could be Sovereign. I don’t remember the exact question, but the answer has stayed with me for the last few months. He said that God is always just so if we think that predestination (in this case) isn’t, we should just put that out of our mind because no matter what God has done or is doing, he is always fair and always just. That has stuck with me and I remember that phrase when I’m feeling like God is not just. Thank you all for your answers :).
So glad Piper posted this on his twitter.
I’ve never really doubted God’s goodness through my sickness. I don’t mean that I haven’t hurt, or not understood a lot about the way things were; just that I never thought that my condition meant that God didn’t desire my good. In fact, when the condition first developed, 5 years ago, He gave me clarity that was not my own that good had come from it, and that I was blessed. There’s no other way that as a 15-year-old I could see that taking away the function of my right side was a good thing, because I had been basing my identity in abilities, rather than in Christ.
But I’ve never really understood whether it came from His hand, or He allowed it to pass through His hand to achieve His good purposes. I was listening to a Mark Driscoll sermon in which he presented his thoughts, which pretty much said that sometimes it’s from him, and sometimes he allows it.
Do you think that it always comes from His hand? Does the Devil have any role in it? What about the broken condition of the world?
I’ve found Piper’s take on John 5 enormously helpful; that whether He heals, or whether He doesn’t, is all for the sake of holiness – that is, being made more like Jesus. And as I understand it, I exist to magnify the glory of His Grace, and I find my deepest satisfaction and joy in His glorification. So, if it will glorify Him to heal me, because of the impossible happening by faith; then, great! But if by keeping me sick, and refining my character to be more like Jesus, if that shines the face of Jesus more brightly and with greater clarity and definition into the darkness, and so bringing Him more glory; then, heck, may I never get well!
Although I still do find it hard to know what to think, it doesn’t affect my confidence in His goodness. It has made believing in my heart that He is a compassionate Father somewhat difficult, I think. I didn’t realise that until quite recently. But He’s gently revealing things to me about being His child, and how by giving me Himself, as the first in my heart is loving me most radically. (I think I would be less receptive to that if I still had my sport/music/dramatic abilities.)
Reading through Piper’s book on Ruth has been helpful in terms of clarifying much of what it means that God is sovereign.
This post hasn’t been much more than untamed ramblings. But it has been helpful for me, at least, haha.