But I have to confess praying only got me pondering about God instead. Especially since I 'happened' to be reading Philip Yancey's book entitled "What Good is God?" when the news broke. I think God already knew the questions that would arise in my heart, so He's thrown me this book even before I asked them. For that was indeed the number 1 question I struggled with, even as I prayed and continue to pray like thousands of others who do believe there is One who looks from above, who knows all the affairs of man and who is still in charge of the universe.
Once again I was confronted with age-old dilemmas which other minds much more brilliant than mine have, through the centuries, debated, dissected and disputed over - where is God in the midst of a messed-up world? How can there be a good or loving God who can Not or will Not do anything in the face of so much that is wrong? Why pray when whatever is going to happen is going to happen anyway, with or without God? Why do I still doggedly believe, despite having no or no satisfactory answer? Some people put it down to faith. But arguably, what's the use of faith when things don't get better and instead seem to get worse? Some talk about comfort. But what comfort is there in a silent heaven, despite all the prayers that must be ascending from M'sia daily, whether it's about the drought, haze or MH370, not to mention the prayers of billions all over the world, petitioning for this, that or the other? When I mentioned that apparently the disaster had been prophesied as early as last year, the quick retort by an atheist was, 'Well, so how come your God can't just make the plane appear now and solve the whole problem?" Touché.
What answer can I give, the mere mortal that I am, how would I know why God does or doesn't do certain things? I am not an expert theologian, I don't fancy the study of apologetics; indeed even though I am legally trained, I don't have much patience with intellectual arguments about logic and proof, since I don't need that to believe. But one thing I do know - that my experience with God over the past 12 years of my life has made me realize how woefully inadequate is my understanding of Him, and how totally unrealistic and self-limiting it is to try to put Him in a box of my own making. I have to constantly caution myself that it's too facile and simplistic to assume that just because God doesn't seem to be 'doing' anything, He doesn't exist, or that if He did, He's not good or great.
I found a glimpse of an answer at a funeral wake, of all places. By the way this was the 5th funeral in less than 2 weeks that I was informed about. That's a lot of deaths, a lot of grief. The pastor recounted how the departed sister who suffered much during her illness never complained, but kept on coming to church, even helping out in ministry, altho her capability was already limited. It struck me then that death is the reason for my faith.
We humans instinctively don't want to suffer. That's why we always pray to be blessed with 'good' things - health, wealth, no pain, no troubles, peace, happiness, safety. We moan and groan about the 'bad' things that happen in our personal lives, in our society, in the world. Why? Could it be that we all have this in-built 'radar' that consistently responds to good and evil because the original 'plan' for mankind had gone out of whack? God didn't make 'losers, He made man in His image to be blessed, to "be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over...all the earth" (Genesis 1:26,28). If we would believe the Bible, in the beginning all that was created by God was indeed good; it was only when man sinned that all the 'bad' became his lot - hard work, toil, sweat, suffering, labor and death. In other words, because of our own folly, we lost it all. And like wistful losers, we try to recapture what used to be ours. So we cry at funerals not just for the deceased, but for ourselves, because deep inside, we all don't want death. We get angry at injustice and oppression, we balk at pain and suffering, we condemn evil, not only or really because we should, but because instinctively, we 'know' that's not how life was meant to be.
Yet, if there be no God, good and evil would be meaningless, since everyone dies, so what's the big deal? If there is no heaven or hell, what anyone does or doesn't do in this life won't matter an iota, because we would all end up in a coffin some day. Why bother being/doing good, and what's so bad about evil then? You can be you, I can be I; we can be free, to each his own, live and let live, till death claims us both. But I don't want to be reduced to insignificant dust or ashes, I am certain I wasn't created to be a mere memory in earth-time. Indeed I have heard of an incredulous promise, declared by a Man named Jesus, 'I am the Resurrection and the Life. The one who believes in Me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in Me will never die" (John11:25-26). Come to think of it, that's what was so good about the original plan of God from aeons ago- man was gifted with eternal life to rule.
And that's why I believe - because it is only God who can hold out such a hope for humankind. Without this hope of restoration of what we have lost, we are really as good as dead. It is this hope I feel at Christian funerals when pastors always talk about 'a better place'. It is this hope that keeps me praying for a better tomorrow, though it may not happen in my tomorrow. It is this hope that sees me through crises, sufferings and sorrows of the heart, enabling me to rejoice and be glad everyday, for this is the day that the Lord has made. It is this hope that assures me I am redeemed and saved from hell despite being the sinner that I am. It is this very hope I harbor deep inside that I will be reunited with my husband the moment I leave this earth forever. It is this fantastic hope that I will see Jesus , Lover and Beloved of my soul, face-to-face on that day. It is this incredible hope that when I meet my Maker, He will be well-pleased with the way I have lived life on earth.
Not just a wishy-washy, maybe-it-is-or-maybe-it's-not kind of mushy sentimentalist optimism, but a hope grounded on nothing less than the very real death of a real Person on a cross 2014 years ago. I believe... because Jesus didn't stay dead, therein lies the foundation of the Christian hope. Let mockers, cynics and skeptics sneer all they want. After all, as Apostle Paul put it, "... if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile.... If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied..."(1 Corinthians 15:17,19), as he went on to assert, "But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead" (1 Corinthians 15:20). I find it amazing that Paul, a brilliant learned scholar, amongst the best of his times, who started out persecuting the followers of Jesus, who wasn't an actual eye-witness of His resurrection, can upon his conversion, declare with such certainty and assurance the corner-stone of Christianity - that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, an issue which will forever be the point of contention that divides the believer and non-believer.
So what good is God? In his book of the same title, Yancey writes about his encounters with all kinds of people - Virginia Tech campus kids who lived through the 2007 massacre where 33 people were gunned down senselessly, pastors who are routinely imprisoned for their faith in certain countries (and take it as a badge of honor) , prostitutes who want to get out of a lifestyle that provides money but no peace, slum communities who can still create a place to worship God in the midst of the abject squalor and disgusting filth of their surroundings, persecuted Christian minorities in certain nations who continue to live out their faith, doing good to their 'enemies' despite knowing they and their entire families could be tortured or killed any time, coloreds forgiving their white-skinned tormentors in public confessions in a nation's reconciliation process....all provoking real-life stories that point to 1 common strand - hope in the face of hopelessness. Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky who penned the classic Crime and Punishment had this to say, "To live without hope is to cease to live". Martin Luther King, facing the reality of social inequality, said, "We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope". Yancey turned the tables around very neatly by asking the question, "What good is no God?"
Indeed, what good is life, no matter how wonderful, if there is no god? I guess that's why I still believe and will continue to believe in a God who offers the only way out of the futility of life and finality of death - a hope of restoration and redemption. Quoting ex-President Franklin Roosevelt, "We have always held to the hope, the belief, that conviction that there is a better life, a better world beyond the horizon". That's exactly how the Bible ends - with a promise that there will be another time, another place, "a new heaven and a new earth.. where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain..."(Revelation 21:1,4). There has to be; otherwise Jesus would have died in vain, and all Christians would rightly be called fools. But as much as no one appreciated (nor can anyone ever understand) what 'good' there was as Jesus hung dying on the cross on that long-ago Friday, when throughout the whole of Saturday, nothing 'good' happened, but on the third day, when all human hope was gone, eternal hope resurrected; and the world was never the same again after that Sunday. Where some see a hopeless end, others can see an endless hope....
When I look to the cross and the tomb of Jesus Christ, I find hope that springs eternal because both are empty. Death has been finally and forever vanquished. I can never lose when I believe the One who has already won the victory. Praise God for that blessed Hope.
"That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe"... 1 Timothy 4:10
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