Blessings and Curses...There is no Comparison

It's the age old question of 'why do bad things happen to good people?'; the human perspective on life in a culture filled with negativity. I've posted on this before, but it's become a recurring theme, at least for me.  The last couple of months I've had a daily struggle to find joy and contentment with my lot in the midst of disappointments and heartaches. It's especially hard to be happy and joyful for others when it appears that their dreams and prayers have been seamlessly fulfilled and answered to their satisfaction, and my own have been denied or answered in a way I don't like.

I don't mean to sound like Negative Nancy or a perpetual Debbie Downer where the glass is always half full. Most of the time I'd like to think I keep a pretty positive perspective on life, but when things go wrong for me and right for someone else, I find myself wondering why. Why is one person's path rocky and steep, while someone else's way is smooth and easy? Why do some people's prayers get instantly answered just the way they want them to, while others' prayers take longer, with less satisfactory (in our opinion) results? Why are some families seemingly perfect, and others filled with disfunction? Why are some faithful people given a plethora of heavy burdens to carry or overcome, and others given a handful of featherweight ones?

It just doesn't seem fair when good, faithful, godly people are made to suffer.  Why does God allow sad, hard things to happen? Being the perfectionist I am, my reflex response is to look for something I've done that resulted in hardship. Believe me, I can usually find plenty of personal defects to pin it on. The result is not pretty, and leaves me even angrier and brings my carefully buried self-destruct button dangerously close to the surface. It's an old-testament kind of philosophy...believing that hardship must be the result of sin,and going around pointing fingers in order to explain the pain away.  I think I often try to make salvation a black-and-white picture: I love and follow Christ and I get blessed. People who do bad things and don't follow God get cursed. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Deuteronomy 30:15 says "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction...life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him." Doesn't that bear me out? I choose life through Christ, so that means I get blessings and prosperity and everything is just hunkydory for the rest of my life, right? Unfortunately not...it doesn't always work that way.

Bad things can happen to good people.  It's a fact. People who are living faithfully suffer, just as people who could care less about spiritual things can appear to have very easy lives. We can be impacted by sin, even if it's not directly out sin. God never promised us a rose garden. Jesus never said it would be easy. He lived without sin, and yet Jesus's time on earth was fraught with trouble and ended in his crucifixion. Many faithful people throught history and today have been and still are afflicted with pain, trouble, and hardship. "In this world," Jesus says in John 16:33, "you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."  The new testament in chalk full of verses pertaining to hardship and suffering.

Compared to some people I know nothing about pain and suffering. Compared to some, I've had an amazingly good, blessed, and easy life. Compared to others, however, I've had my share of challenges and heartaches, and they've had it much, much better. But that's the real kicker here...you can't compare. There's no way to line up the scales of hardship and faithfulness and decide that I'm better off or worse off than someone else. When we try to compare ourselves to others, that's when Satan slips in and starts to whisper in our ear that life's not fair. God must not love us enough. Or in my case, I must not be good enough to deserve God's blessings. I'll admit, when I feel like I'm the one getting the short straw, it can be easy to feel resentment and bitterness towards God and others.  The truth is there is no comparison between the number of seeming blessings or curses we each receive, and no way to rationalize them away.

The apostle Paul was given a thorn in his flesh...a painful messenger of Satan.  Paul pleaded with God to take it away.  God's response?  No.  "My grace is sufficient for you," he said, "for my power is made perfect in weakness."  2 Cor 12:8.  Sometimes God uses our suffering as a reminder of whose in charge.  He's not being mean and spiteful...he experiences our pain with us, but he wants us to know that it's not by our own strength and will-power and self-esteem that we overcome troubles...only through his grace. 

So what should we do, when we're hurting and it seems that life is not fair, and God is ignoring us?  That where the last part of the Deuteronomy 30 verses comes in.  Even when times are tough, we are face with a choice.  By choosing life we choose to love God, to listen to his voice, and to hold fast to him, inspite of our circumstances.  1 Peter 4:19 says "Those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good."  Likewise, in 1 Peter 5:6-11 we read, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast." 

Our human response may be to wallow in self-pity...to criticize and to compare.  Those are destructive responses.  I know, because I've tried them.  They only leave you hurting worse and feeling emptier inside than before.  They build up walls around ourselves while tearing down relationships with others.  They leave us angry...bitter...resentful.  Instead of comparing ourselves to others, we are to fix our eyes on Christ.  Cry out to God and praise him, even when it hurts.  Ask him to share the burden with us, so that we don't get bogged down in our own sorrow.  Seek to comfort, encourage and pray for others who are also enduring hardships.  Most of all, wait expectantly, in living hope that God will "restore...the joy of his salvation" (Ps 51:12), and we will "see the goodness of the Lord" (Ps 27:13). 

It's not easy; it can be a daily...hourly, even moment by moment effort.  It's making a conscious decision to  focus on the blessings we have received and He who provides them, rather than to dwell on the ways we feel "cursed" or disappointed.  God's grace is sufficient for any hardship.  Afterall, it takes broken people to reach a broken world.

"Be joyful in hope, patient in aflliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12