Stuff Christians Need to Stop Saying #1
February 5, 2010 by cloften
Filed under Bible, Church and Leadership, Family and Parenting
I am hesitant to label this #1. This means that I will do more. However, if this doesn’t go well, I won’t. But since it didn’t go well, you won’t remember, so we’re good. As this (possibly) turns into a list over time, some of them will be funny, some will not. Christians have a lot of expressions that we use. Some of them have terrible theology in them. Some are just weird. Some are old and need a makeover. Enough intro, here is #1.
Lesson Learned Theory of Facing Trials
Set-up: A Christian is going through some sort of difficult circumstance and is trying to process it.
So the person going through the trial is talking to a friend about the trial and one of them (could be either one) will say, “God is trying to teach you something. You need to learn it, so this will pass.” “Yeah, I know. I thought I had learned this lesson already, but apparently I didn’t. The trial came back.”
That seems harmless enough, and my guess is that it seems common. However, there is a danger to that kind of thinking, to believe that trials happen so that God can teach us. He then will not remove the trial until you learn the lesson. He then reserves the right to bring more suffering into your life if you did not learn the lesson completely.
There are a couple of problems here. First, it means we misunderstand the source of trials and suffering. God is not the source. A cursed and sinful world is the source. We sin and suffering results. Someone else sins, and suffering results. The world that is cursed where sickness and death are the norm brings suffering. God does use suffering to refine our character, but that job is never finished and that lesson will never be over. God will use suffering to teach perseverence which develops character which produces hope, a hope that does not disappoint (Rom 5:1-5). He will work for your good in all things (Rom 8:28). Nowhere in that does it say or even suggest that God is throwing suffering on you simply to teach you or that he is holding on to the end of suffering like cheese on a string, waiting for you to learn something, but jerking it back if you haven’t learned enough yet.
God is a good God that loves you and wants you to have peace and hope in your life. When trials come he is always going to be leading you in that direction, deepening your character. However, do not believe that that means you are at fault for the suffering because he thought you needed to learn something. Furthermore, (trying to avoid full blown rant) this kind of thinking is very dangerous for those that are in the middle of a trial that is irreversable, i.e. the death of a loved one or infertility. We learn to cope, have hope and peace, trust God, but those things do not go away.
By all means, we need to find God in the middle of difficult circumstances. However, in these situations God is not the strict 3rd grade teacher with the ruler ready to swat your knuckles, but a compassionate Father with you on his lap wanting you to find hope and life in him and to find comfort in the eternal life he offers.
