Why Do the Righteous Suffer & Evil Seems to Prevail?

My face is swollen. I stumble to the mirror.

It’s 5:00 a.m. Puffy eyes, enlarged nose.

My eyes still red from the night before, after the news; my Father’s cancer has returned.

A world in chaos, elections, Coronavirus. And then, a five month long battle, keeping my dad alive from an agressive kind of cancer, Acute Myloid Lukemia.

It’s a story of strength and triumph. His last Bone Marrow Test showed zero cancer, 0% blasts in bloodwork, just a few weeks ago.

The new year began. Our nation started opening again.

And now, this aggressive disease, returns after a short, six weeks in remission.

Cancer forces my seventy-seven year old dad back into the heat of chemo and medication, water chugging and rotating stents of hospital stays and blood transfusions.

Swollen limbs and barely hydrated, my pragmatic morning mind turns to the Apostle, Peter.

Feeling betrayed, yet a betrayer, at the bottom of the cross of His uncertainties, wondering if he would ever survive.

The One he loved, the one he gave up his fishing life for, nailed to a cross, baring the scars that Peter should have bore.

Denying Jesus just hours before, after Peter was confronted about his identity as a Jesus-follower.

In his day, following Jesus was opposed and dangerous.

What disappointment Peter must have felt.

The strongest, bravest, kindest, gentlest man He had ever know, laying there, with a crown of thorns jabbed upon His head…

Lungs crushed, gasping for breath…For Peter who was the guilty.

So why do the wicked seem to prosper and the just encounter suffering?

Hababkkuk asked that same question; “Why do You remain silent when the wicked devours one more righteous than he?” (Habakkuk 1:13).

Jeremiah also questioned; “Why does the way of the wicked succeed?” (Jeremiah 12:1).

Even King David, the Man after God’s own heart, knows the seeming injustness of good men suffering, while evil seems to prosper…

David laments;

“Behold, such are the wicked; they are always at ease and they increase their riches. Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart and washed my hands in innocence because all day long I have been plagued and I am chastised every morning” (Psalms 73:12-14).

All false gospels, make us carry the scale…We do good, good things happen. We do bad, and we suffer understandably.

But grace…

Grace is a free gift, poured out to the unworthy; given, not because they deserve it, but because of His mercy, paid for by Jesus last gasp on the cross.

We can’t earn grace. We can’t fight or contend for it. It’s a gift that’s free, completely.

Just as evil can be laid on the righteous, and the world can feel upside down…

Unearned pain, unjust torment, undue treatment, not because someone was “bad”, but because God allowed it, can be difficult to understand.

The disciples of Jesus day were no different.

They got out the scale and grappled, trying to assign attributes for suffering to a man who was blind…

“Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2)

But Jesus, a man of grace and mery, threw their scale away.

He shared a Kingdom principle that honestly, with my morning face and tear-struck eyes, I struggle to understand…

Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (John 9:3)

God shines THROUGH suffering? Beauty comes OUT OF  hard things? Eternity being all the more radiant BECAUSE of the painful?

Why do we separate suffering and joy in our society? “Can Joy Co-Exist with Suffering?”

Why do we clump apart good and bad? Light and darkness? Suffering and triumph?

Cannot we triumph AMIDST suffering? Don’t we see beauty IN THE MIDST of the difficulty? Can’t we walk with joy, THROUGH our wearisome struggling?

There is so much to Jesus I still have to understand.

The Righteous Prevail Through Suffering

My dad has been a warrior. A warrior in every sense of the word. Dangling in his pain, like Jesus.

Like a Lamb who to the Slaughter, has not cried out in bitterness.

Watching the strongest man you’ve ever know, come to their knees, and sitting on the sidelines of this fragile human experience, is nothing short of humbling.

It makes you wrestle with your own demons, confront your own lies, take the scale of all you thought and allow it to be crushed by the Savior’s kindness, righteousness and truth.

It resurrects in you; a new prayer, a new song….

Not one of eloquent words, beautiful in halls of stain-glassed windows…

But a cry of lonely desperation that gasps through the longest night, whispering, “Help. God, PLEASE help my daddy.”

It’s a child’s prayer, really…

A child, the one inside this nearly fifty-year old woman.

One I have known since a little girl, my Father in Heaven hears undestractedly.

If I have learned one thing in this carnal life, it is that the simplest cries are magnets to the Father’s ears.

Peter went back to fishing.

When Jesus died, Peter gave up the ministry.

He let down his nets, returning to the mindless task of what was easiest and convenient, lured into a place of familiarity and complacency.

Yet, once that light of Jesus finds a soul, His light will never die.

Peter saw the lit fires on the shores in the morning.

A fire.

A figure standing there, waiting for him.

And, “What If We Stopped Running, Trying to Escape the Difficult?”

I think about that often.

The mundane, the routine. Rounds of chemo. Daily chores. Thoughtless tasks, done robotically all throughout the day…

But then the light. The Light of His Hope, waiting for me, waiting for you.

And I don’t doubt for one second, I would have jumped right out of that boat with Peter, and swam straight to that shore.

He is risen.

The man. The friend. The brother. The Savior Peter loved, waiting for Him.

Shining.

Believing in the man, Peter, who didn’t believe in himself.

Standing when Peter’s frailty and fear turned his back on Jesus and left him on a cross.

Oh, the Hope of The One standing, waiting for us.

Jesus’ and Peter’s story didn’t end at the cross. It began at that fire, when Jesus commissioned Peter to…

“GO and feed my sheep”.

The betrayal wasn’t the end of Peter’s ministry, but the beginning.

Death needed to happen for resurrection life to bring hope, purpose, and a new vision for a man who professed, “You know I love you, Jesus.”

Who do you love today? Who have you wrestled with God over? Who have you forced the grapple down with and played judge, thinking you know better than God?

I sleep in tears but wake with meaning. Hope, purpose, and the promise of Job, that says…Whatever God takes from me, God is good and He knows best.

My Father hasn’t died from cancer yet. And my guess is, whatever is plaguing your life hasn’t crushed you, even unto death.

We as humans see life, in light of our physical existence. But God looks at us in light of eternity.

“We are children…IF we share in the suffering of Christ.” (Romans 8:17)

We can run from hard, or we can embrace it with grace and humility, hope and the promise that our Jesus is waiting on the shore, shining His light of Hope, like a beckon to our hearts.

Perhaps this isn’t the end of the story, but the suffering is just the beginning.

We too can endure our crosses, leaving Him with greater glory…

A glory that doesn’t fade, each time the sun goes down.

Won’t you awaken to the promise of Jesus?

He is waiting on the shore for you, with a light on…

A light that won’t ever die.