Yesterday, things did not go as planned.
Having carefully made my travel arrangements for a few days in beautiful Poland, my flight from Heathrow to Vienna arrived late and, as a result, I was unable to make my connecting flight and had to be rerouted via Frankfurt. Consequently my host graciously collected me from Krakow Airport, not at a quarter past two in the afternoon as I had hoped, but a quarter to one the next morning instead.
Now as most of you will know, I am one of those peculiar people who call themselves a Christian. I don’t claim to be a very good one but do have a sufficient enough grasp of reformed theology to know that God is sovereign, that he is in absolute control of everything, and works all things together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose [Romans 8:28].
Which means of course, that I have to conclude that missing my flight was therefore, both according to his will and in some way good for me too.
I should, however say, that, as things stand, I’ve no idea how I’ve benefited from clocking up who knows how many more air miles. And since I don’t collect them, they themselves can’t have been the reason. Neither, I’m delighted to say, did the flight I was due to catch crash, killing everyone on board.
Because whilst, if it had, it may have been easy for me to suggest how, in my case at least, Romans 8:28 was true, it would, of course, have raised far more questions than it answered: questions concerning, not only how God’s sovereignty had worked for the good of those who had died having caught the plane I hadn’t, but the many other tragic events that in some unfathomable way God also still allows to happen.
Because if all things are subject to God, why is there so much suffering in the world? If he sets the bounds of the waters, why are there so many floods? If he provides food and drink, why are there so many children still starving to death? And if he is so rich in mercy, why have we not yet managed to make poverty history?
Well we are on mysterious ground here, and so we must step carefully. But we need nonetheless to recognise that there is no comfort from imagining that when bad things happen, it is because God wasn’t able to prevent it.
Because if he couldn’t prevent what we didn’t want to happen yesterday, neither can he prevent what we don’t want to happen tomorrow.
Instead we need to trust him, recognising that just as God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are his ways our ways. [Isaiah 55:8]
Because suffering, though it may be hard for us to understand, is not without meaning. And nor is it without purpose.
John Piper gives us a powerful illustration when he asks us to imagine ourselves walking through a hospital and hearing someone screaming with pain. How we feel about what we hear differs depending on whether we’re on an oncology ward, or a labour ward.
Because some pain leads to death, whilst other pain leads to life.
And so we can be confident that the suffering that our Father in Heaven loving and sovereignly brings into our life, is a suffering that is doing something as it prepares for us an eternal weight of glory that is beyond all comparison [2 Corinthians 4:17].
Furthermore the suffering that we all sometimes experience, when compared to the infinite glories we will enjoy in eternity, is but light and momentary.
And we should remember too that, irrespective of how violent, cruel, and seemingly callous the acts of human beings can be, what mankind means for evil, God can simultaneously mean for good. [Genesis 50:20]
Which is something that we see most clearly at the cross where, according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, lawless men delivered Jesus up to be crucified. [Acts 2:23]
The most evil act in history was, therefore, ordained by an infinitely Holy God – one who, though men meant it for evil, simultaneously meant for good.
But returning to my more meagre miseries, for the time being at least, it remains the case that, apart from the complementary piece of Austrian confectionary I enjoyed on my additional flight, and the €15 food voucher offered me for my trouble, I do not know why my journey was extended in the way that it was.
And even though that may forever remain the case, by faith, I continue to believe that somehow it was for my good.
Because that is what faith is – believing what God says is true, even when the evidence isn’t immediately evident.
Which is not to say that faith is blind – not at all. My Christian faith is based on evidence, eyewitness testimony, and authoritative statements made by an infinitely trustworthy God.
History attests to the resurrection, those who were contemporaries of Jesus have recorded for us what they saw, and the consistent fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies gives us good cause to believe the promises that God has made concerning the future.
We all then have good reason to believe what we have been told about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As you have for my sorry story of failed air travel.
But if you do believe it – and I hope you will as it is, absolutely, true – you will have done so by faith. Because your belief will have come, not as a consequence of having witnessed my travel travails yourself, but because you have, nonetheless, decided to trust my testimony.
Related posts:
To read ‘Grounds for Hope’, click here
To read ‘When Bad Things Happen’, click here
To read ‘Luther and the War in Ukraine – on becoming a theologian of the cross’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read ‘All’s Well That End’s Well’, click here
To read ‘Looking back to move confidently forward’, click here
To read ‘What becomes of the broken hearted? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Palm Sunday’, click here
To read ‘Why do bad things happen to good people? Sorrowful yet always rejoicing on Good Friday’, click here
To read ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things? Rejoicing, though temporarily sorrowful, on Easter Day’, click here.
To read ‘T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read ‘On the fallen and the felled’, click here
To read ‘On NOT being afraid at Halloween’, click here
To read ‘At Halloween – O death where is your victory?’, click here
Some musings 