Tag Archives: trials

FEAR of BAD NEWS

It is easy to call God good when things are good. But to look tragedy in the face and still believe wholeheartedly that God is good, that is faith.

God doesn’t always come through for you in the way you envision, pray or hope. The words of too many contemporary worship songs inspire us to believe in the impossible and then when we experience a real life tragedy we’re devasted. Too many preachers present theology in such a way that we think that if we have the faith the size of a mustard seed, then we obligate God to work on our behalf. But real life contradicts that kind of preaching. What we need to help us through tragedy is the fullness of Scripture in our lives.  

The older someone gets, the more they realize that they live within this general cycle: about to enter a trial, in the midst of a trial or recently got out of a trial. Yet, we never seem ready to go into a trial. The fear of receiving bad news can paralyze our minds. We spend many hours a day thinking about what “bad thing” is going to happen next. If you don’t struggle with this kind of anxiety, good for you. But I have seen many individuals struggle with this crippling nervousness.

Have you ever looked at the name of the person calling you on your phone and you freeze in fear for a moment because you dread what that person is going to tell you on the other line? You answer the phone call anyway because not knowing is also agonizing. If you have had to endure “receiving bad news” from various people and in different ways, then certain situations will trigger your emotions. 

Psychologists call the fear of receiving bad news anticipatory anxiety. When you cannot predict or control the future and it negatively impacts your daily life, then you need to face this fear and overcome it. Hopefully, the following story will help you find a way to free yourself from the fear of receiving bad news.  

My dad picked my mom’s favorite flower (Jewel of Tibet) and placed it at her grave.

At 7:55 p.m. on a Friday night, I received one of those dreaded calls. My sister called and said that they were taking my mom to the emergency room because she was having a hard time breathing. Fear sunk into my heart that night, but I tried my best to push it aside and believe for the best. The trip to the hospital was precautionary, or so I had hoped.

112 days. My mom spent 112 days in the hospital. When she first checked into the hospital, we were optimistic that she would be out in a couple weeks. But that first weekend she was moved into the Intensive Care Unit. A couple weeks later she was placed on the ventilator. A few weeks after that they placed a tracheostomy tube in her so that she could continue on the ventilator. She developed pneumonia several times. She fought sepsis a couple times. She started to get better and then would have set backs. We would receive positive news one day and then the next we would be given devasting news. 

In the middle of the 112 days, we discovered a verse in the Bible that encouraged us. We had no idea that my mom would spend 112 days in the hospital, so when we read the words of Psalm 112, we held onto these words not knowing that God, in His sovereignty, was preparing us. For example, we found Psalm 112 during February. My mom had been in the hospital for about fifty days at that point. There was no numerical connection between Psalm 112 and her spending 112 days in the hospital yet. This is what Psalm 112 states:

“They will have no fear of bad news” (Psalm 112:7).

Whenever my dad, my sisters or myself would receive bad news from the doctor or from lab reports, we would continue to hold onto hope. We were given bad news dozens of times during these 112 days, but we never remained in a place of fear.

We refused to allow bad news to shake us. Our hearts stood steadfast and secure. We trusted in the Lord. 

We met several doctors who had one hundred percent trust in medicine and the health care system, but zero percent trust in God. We also met a couple doctors that seemed to be believers. A doctor who is skilled in medicine and trusts in God can become one of the most powerful forces in our world. For God created medicine and He is the author of both natural miracles and supernatural miracles.  

Late one night, I was reading a report from one of the doctors. He didn’t give my mom much of a chance for recovery. At the end of his report, he wrote the words, “Prognosis is poor.” When I first read this three-word phrase, fear entered my heart. I envisioned an outcome that I was dreading. But then just as quickly as fear struck me, I was also given a peace that filled my heart instead. I had to make a choice in that moment. Will I fear the bad news, or will I trust God? Will I be consumed with terror, or will I rest in calmness that God is in control? 

The doctor was not God. He cannot determine the future. I am not God. I cannot determine the future. God is the one who decides what the future holds. 

Why should we have no fear of bad news? Is it because everything will turn out exactly how we want? No. Anyone who has lived long enough realizes that sometimes bad news turns into reality. In the midst of the unknown, God wants us to trust Him. But when we fear the bad news, we worry, we increase our anxiety levels, we fret about things we cannot change and we miss out on learning a valuable lesson: God wants us to rest in Him while we wait, wondering if good or bad will actually happen. 

Fast forward to day 112. The bad news turned into reality. My mom died. Why did God, in His sovereignty, allow my mom to live the last several months of her life in the hospital? Would it have been better if she would have died after ten days? Or a month? When I counted up the days in my head as I was driving home from the hospital that night, I couldn’t believe the number. So, I counted again. And then I counted a third time. My mind immediately went to Psalm 112.

In Psalm 112, we are told to not fear bad news. But how does that work? God is specific in how that is possible. 

Their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord. Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;in the end they will look in triumph on their foes (Psalm 112:7-8).

Bad news tries to shake us, but if we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, we remain steadfast and secure no matter what happens. Even in those moments of weakness when we feel our emotions melting into a puddle on the floor, we focus our attention upon God and we trust Him to sustain us and take care of us in the midst of a trial. 

But you might ask, “God didn’t come through for you. He allowed your mom to die. Don’t you feel like God failed you?” 

No. Because my perspective as a Christian is not just what happens on this earth. Look at verse eight again. “In the end they will look in triumph on their foes (enemies).” In this case, disease and death were the foes. Disease and death won the battle. But because of my faith, I know that in the end, God will make all things right. I hold onto that hope that when I breathe my last breath I will see my mom once again and it will be for millions and billions and trillions of years with no end in sight. With this eternal perspective, death has been swallowed up in victory and no longer has a sting (1 Corinthians 15:54-55).

Let me rephrase that. I will feel the sting of my mom’s death until the day that I die. I miss her fiercely. But I know that I will see her again. I trust in my God because of what He DID (“He has risen” – Matthew 28:6) and what He SAID (“I am making everything new!” – Revelation 21:5).

I will see my mom again someday. I am deeply saddened because I wish she could have enjoyed this upcoming decade and watched more ball games, seen more graduations and taken more family trips.

We will miss her presence at our family events because she will be absent from my earthly life. But as a Christian, I must trust in Christ if I am to claim that He is my savior. 

It is easy to call God good when things are good. But to look tragedy in the face and still believe wholeheartedly that God is good, that is faith. And it is a faith that is steadfast and secure. 

I have found that God is a God of details. There is no coincidence that God allowed my mom to live 112 days in the hospital and then pointed our family to Psalm 112. You might be thinking how difficult it was to see someone suffering for that long. Yes, it was a long time in our eyes. But when you measure 112 days in view of the next life that is ever lasting, the 112 days are barely a blink. 

Most of those 112 days were exhausting emotionally and physically. They were filled with many tears and questions about the future. But during this time, our family had a peace that transcended our own human understanding. It is because we trusted in the Rock eternal.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal (Isaiah 26:3-4). 

Why Does Bad Stuff Happen to Me?

why does bad stuff happen to me

My wife Amy and I will never forget the response a younger couple had to our suffering when they entered our hospital room just moments after we found out that our baby had died. We were surprised by her visit, but not by her statement to us. The twenty-something year old woman said this: “I can’t believe that God would allow this to happen to you, you are a pastor.” She had a terrible past. She was abused as a child. She had several children out of wedlock. She had even spent some time in prison. By her logic, this should have happened to her.

The words of this young woman stuck with me for several months through this tragedy. I knew as a pastor I needed to find out what God tells us about suffering in the Bible. As I was thinking through what God had to say about suffering, my mind immediately thought about Job. So, I started to study all forty-two chapters of Job, not just the first two chapters and then the last (which is what pastors seem to only focus on).

I learned that suffering Job had three friends. When these three friends heard about his struggles, they came to him to simply sympathize with him and comfort him:

Eliphaz the Temanite

Bildad the Shuhite

Zophar the Naamathite

When they first saw Job, the scene was so bad that they tore their robes, threw dust over their heads and shouted and wept. It was so unthinkable that they sat down on the ground with him for seven days without speaking a word to him.

Each of these three men would eventually give a few speeches to Job. But before we look at what these men said to Job, we must realize that the counselors were basically wrong even though their words were often right:

God said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right” (Job 42:7-8).

Each of their speeches have a common theme.  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar all had the same logic:

            #1 Sinful people experience trouble.

          #2 Innocent people are saved from trouble.

           #3 Job is experiencing trouble.

           #4 Job is sinful.

There is some truth to this, but it is not complete. You see, the three friends only asked one question. They jumped to the conclusion that Job was suffering because of unrepentant sin in his life. Even though this could have been a possibility, it is not necessarily true. And in this case with Job, it was not true. Job really had no known sin in his life at the time. These friends were too narrow in their thinking about why we suffer.

Suffering is not linked to sin unless it’s a consequence of behavior. Instead of just jumping to one conclusion when something bad happens to us, we must be willing to search deep in our hearts with three other questions.

There are three other questions Job’s friends should have been asking as they were trying to understand why bad things were happening to Job. When we are suffering, we must ask ourselves these questions:

Question #1 – Do I have unrepentant sin in my life? God might be disciplining us. He might be correcting us. We have to see if there is any sin in our life. If the answer is “yes,” then repent. It doesn’t get much simpler than what God says to the people of Israel when they are living in sin and they are experiencing drought, famine, and attacks from other nations.

God says, “If you repent, I will restore you that you may serve Me” (Jeremiah 15:19).

What does it mean to repent? It means that you confess your sin to God and you stop your sin. But if you have searched your heart and can find no known sin, then ask another question.

Question #2 – How can I spiritually grow from this?  God allows bad things to happen to us to build character in us. If we look ahead to the end of the story, we see that Job grew from this experience. He grew in his knowledge of who God really was. By the end of this story, Job realized that his view of God was so inadequate. Job grew in understanding who God was. 

Romans 5:3-4 states that “we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope.”

Hope really is all about attitude. And our attitudes will dictate how well or not we will go through a trial and how much we will learn from our troubles. Attitude determines so much in our life. Especially when something does not go right. In your current trial, what are you learning?

The most successful people in this life have learned from their tragedies and have become a better person because of it. God always wants us to grow spiritually from everything that happens to us. That is why we must spend time searching deep into our hearts to figure it out. After searching, if you have still not found out why, then ask another question.

Question #3 – How can I glorify God in this situation? Our life is not about being comfortable, but it is about bringing glory to God.  This is a hard concept for us to understand at times, because many Christians have turned their faith into what God can do for them in this life instead of what they can do for God in this life.  Psalm 46:10 states: “Be still and know that I am God; I’ll be glorified among the nations, I’ll be glorified in the earth.”

Our main goal in this life is to glorify God with our life among the nations. Too often, we focus on the first phrase of the verse to be still. We turn the verse into a devotional verse where we are quiet before God so that God can teach us something for the day. But the verse is much deeper than that. God wants us to pause and take notice that He will be gloried in this earth whether or not we listen. But when we do calm ourselves enough to think about God, we realize that our purpose on this planet is to live in a way that brings honor to our God.

When we go through trials in this life, people watch how we handle it. And when we handle it with grace and wisdom, people are impressed. They are impressed with us and they are impressed with our God.

Question #4 – Can I graciously accept this mystery? Am I willing to accept this suffering even though I do not understand why it is happening? It seems that when something tragic happens in our life, sometimes we go through a process of understanding why it happened.

Immediate: About 25% of the time, when we are going through a tough time, we know immediately why we are going through it. It becomes very clear to us (The percentage is not exact, but it simply shows us that about one out of four times we face a challenge in life, we know why. And most of the time it is because of sin in our life when it is immediate.).

Eventually: There are other times where it takes a little longer, but eventually we discover why it happened to us. This seems to happen about 50% of the time. Wallace Johnson was born in 1902 and helped start the famous Holiday Inn motels chain. This is his story:

“When I was 38 years old I worked in a sawmill. One morning the boss told me I was fired. Depressed and discouraged, I felt like the world had caved in. When I told my wife what had happened, she asked me what I was going to do. I replied, ‘I’m going to mortgage our little home and go into the building business.’ The loan was for $250. My first venture was the construction of two small buildings. Within 5 years I was a multimillionaire! At the time it happened, I didn’t understand why I was fired. Later, I saw it was God’s unerring and wondrous plan to get me into perfect will.”

Just like Wallace Johnson, can you think about a time in your life where something really difficult came into your life and you were confused for a while as to why it happened, but then eventually you discovered why it happened? After you go through these kinds of trials a few times in your life, you gain a better perspective that God is doing something good behind the scenes. As you mature as a believer, these moments can become exciting if you allow them to be.

Heaven: But there are instances where we do not find out this side of heaven and will have to wait until then to truly find out why something happened to us. This might be about 25% of the time. God marks across some of our days, “Will explain later.”

When bad things happen to us and we don’t receive the answer immediately or even eventually, sometimes we might even think that God is somehow angry with us. Job truly believed that God was angry with him. He was scared to approach God because even though he couldn’t think of anything he had done wrong, he was certain that God was angry with him. He acknowledges that he is a mortal and that it is impossible for a mortal human being to be righteous before God. God could convict him of anything He wants to because God is the One who removes mountains (9:5), shakes the earth (9:6), commands the sun not to shine (9:7), and tramples the waves of the sea (9:8).

But God is not angry with you just because you experience trouble. You must be able to overcome those feelings that well up inside that God is against you when something tragic happens. Because we all will eventually experience something tragic in our lives if we live long enough.

Never: There might even be times when we will never know why something happened to us. When we get to heaven, that does not necessarily mean that we will all of a sudden know everything there is to know about everything. That is reserved for God alone. God is the only One who knows everything and that means that there might be some things that we will never know about no matter what. But I think that we will be able to accept it better when we are in heaven and we will have our new minds and can think at an entirely different level.

While we are here on this earth, God is okay with us arguing with Him. Job 13:15 states: “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.”

You have the right to argue with God and ask why awful things are happening, but always keep your faith while you are contending with Him. There are over 300 questions in the book of Job. Here is one of the questions Job asked:

“Is it right for You indeed to oppress, to reject the labor of Your hands, and to look favorably on the schemes of the wicked” (Job 10:3).

Job knew this was not true. But he sure felt like it was in the moment. We know that this question is not true. But there are times in our lives when we feel like the wicked are getting away with things they shouldn’t, while we are suffering. People ask these questions:

Why is “so and so” so wealthy and successful in his business even though he doesn’t follow the correct ethics, when I follow good ethics and yet it seems like I am constantly struggling to pay my bills?

Why does “so and so” produce baby after baby and yet she neglects her children and spends hardly any time with them, but I would love to have my own child and I would take such good care of them, but God has kept me without a baby?

Why doesn’t “so and so” who doesn’t take good care of their body get cancer? Instead, I get it and I make sure that I eat healthy and strive to keep my body in good shape?

Why does my wife have to die before all of my other friend’s wives? We had a great marriage. We loved each other. We were faithful to each other for forty years, and yet now she is gone and I am the only one of my friends who is alone.

Why can’t I find true love? Everyone around me seems to be able to but me? Why does it feel like God doesn’t have anyone for me?

In December 1987, Jami Goldman and a friend drove from Arizona to Purgatory to ski. Jami was nineteen years old and a student at Arizona State. On the way back, they took a wrong turn. The road was closed behind them, and no one checked the road to see if anyone was on it. Their car got stuck in a snowbank. It was December 23. “You didn’t know if it was day or night for the first four days because the snowstorm was so bad,” Jami said. Jami developed frostbite in her legs, then gangrene. They had no food, and had to melt snow on the dashboard for water. They finally were found January 2. Goldman’s legs had to be amputated below the knees. Goldman wasn’t athletic before she lost her legs.

“A lot of kids ask, ‘Do you want your legs back?’ I say, No, because I wouldn’t be able to sit here and share my story with you.’ Or, ‘No, I wouldn’t be in the position of a role model and a mentor, providing hope for people with disabilities.’ I feel really fortunate my life has taken this turn.”

She ran in the 2000 Paralympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

How can you look at your life storm as an opportunity? What can you do to make sure that God is using you through this tough time in your life for HIS GLORY?