God Has a Purpose Behind the “Why”
“God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves.” – Joni Eareckson Tada
Read Romans 8:18,28
God Has a Purpose Behind the ‘Why’
Years ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Joni Eareckson Tada for a magazine article. She’s an amazing person who has overcome more adversity than most of us could imagine. At the age of 17, Joni became a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down when she dove into the Chesapeake Bay, unaware of the water’s shallowness at that location.
In an instant, this vivacious young woman, who had enjoyed riding horses, hiking, tennis and swimming, could no longer walk and would spend the rest of her life dependent on others for basic needs. “How terrible, how tragic!” we think. And yet, in the interview Joni told me something she’s repeated hundreds, if not thousands of times: “I shudder to think what my life would have been like had I not become paralyzed.”
What? It’s true. Even now, 58 years later, she “shudders” to imagine her life if not for that accident. She explained at that point in her life, she’d realized she wasn’t where she should be in her walk with the Lord and had prayed for Him to bring her closer to Himself.
Her life after such a devastating injury hasn’t been easy. But over the decades since, Joni has become an award-winning author, artist, singer, inspiring speaker, and founder of a ministry dedicated to serving disabled persons throughout the world. Had she remained able-bodied, Joni knows it’s unlikely she would have accomplished even a fraction of that. As she has said, “God allows what He hates to accomplish what He loves.”
In the verses cited above, the apostle Paul – no stranger to adversity himself, having endured beatings, stoning, shipwrecks, extreme hunger and thirst, among other things – boldly wrote, as we’ve noted before, “I consider our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us…. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
The key is understanding that behind the suffering, adversity, hardship, and pain there’s a divine purpose, one that perhaps couldn’t be accomplished in any other way. This gives us hope that, to recall the name of an old TV family series, “Father Knows Best.”
There are folks who intentionally welcome suffering, but it’s always because they have a greater purpose in sight. Consider marathon runners or triathletes, who endure many months of training and preparation, not to mention the grueling competitions themselves. Or the expectant mother who must experience much pain in giving birth but is filled with the anticipation and excitement of cradling her baby in her arms.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Nobel Prize-winning Russian writer and dissident who came to faith in Jesus Christ after suffering the horrors of the Soviet prison system. In his book, The Gulag Archipelago, he wrote, “Bless you prison, bless you for being in my life. For there, lying upon the rotting prison straw, I came to realize that the object of life is not prosperity as we are made to believe, but the maturity of the human soul.”
There’s a school of thought in some corners of American Christianity that God wants all of us to be happy, healthy and pain-free. But that’s not what the Scriptures teach. Jesus went through great suffering Himself. And 1 Peter 2:11 teaches, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps.”
But in the midst of whatever hardships God allows into our lives we can also cling to the assurance Paul expressed: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). In the midst of suffering, He’s there.
It makes no sense to seek out suffering – unless you plan to compete in a marathon or Iron Man triathlon. However, we can trust that as we undergo life’s inevitable hardships we’re following in Jesus’ steps. Also, that God is using our times of suffering, as Solzhenitsyn wrote, for “the maturity of the human soul.”