Why doesn’t God just fix our problems? If God is all knowing, He knows how we struggle. He knows the agony, the loneliness the injustice of divorce. He knows how exhausting and frightening single parenting is. He knows how overwhelming financial burdens, home responsibilities, and daily life can be. If God is all powerful, He can fix everything in your life with a snap of His fingers. Heck, He could probably fix everything with the thought of a snap of His fingers! If God is all Good, He should WANT to fix everything in your life, shouldn’t He???
If God is all these things, why doesn’t He fix what’s wrong in our lives right now?
I don’t pretend to know the mind of God, but I can guess there are a few reasons. First, God the Father is the Beginning of the Trinity. As the Father, He realizes that He must let us stumble to teach us to fully stand. Think of the toddler learning to walk or of the child riding a two-wheeled bike for the first time. In both cases, the good father let’s go knowing his child will stumble and fall. He knows his child will end up with bumps and bruises. He knows the child will cry out and perhaps even blame the father for letting him fall and get hurt. The good father does it anyway watching and waiting, ready to dust off bumps and bruises, but not preventing those feeble attempts. The good father knows that it is only once his child finds balance that he gains independence and that it is only in that independence that his child can use free will to fly back into his Father’s waiting and open arms.
Jesus Christ is the second part of the Trinity. We have seen the miracles He performed. We know of His Good and Gentle ways so must ask why Jesus doesn’t reach out and cure our pains today? Why didn’t He cure all as He walked the planet over 200o years ago?
Jesus Christ is all Divine but also all human. He knows the weakness of humanity. He knows that man without struggle becomes lazy and fails to strive for better. Without struggle, would we honestly cry out for more of Him or would we turn to ourselves, mistaking the power to heal as coming from medicine or science or our own sense of self awesomeness? Jesus wants us to cry out to Him, not for His own selfish reasons, but because He knows it is only when we cry out to Him that we can open our hearts to what it truly means to Love.
The third and most mysterious part of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit, that amazing, powerful Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who first appeared in tongues of fire and gusts of wind. It is the Holy Spirit who is most active and alive in our world today, and yet we understand Him little and pray to Him even less.
The Old Testament spoke of God the Father as those ancient people tried to understand Him and as He tried to help them. The New Testament spoke of Jesus Christ the Divine Son as the Jews and Gentiles tried to understand Him and as He tried to help them. Today, we have a better understanding of God the Father and Jesus Christ the Savior, but we are often unsure of the Holy Spirit. In our time, we live with the very active Holy Spirit, but have we been active in trying to understand Him?
Perhaps the key to solving our pains lies in embrace of the entirety of the Trinity, in our love of the Holy Spirit and a submission to His strength over our own. Perhaps the stumbling we do today is meant to give us land legs strong enough to run to our Lord in His entirety tomorrow.
God’s plans are seldom observable to the human mind or heart as they unfold. We seldom get satisfying answers for why we are allowed to suffer, but when we turn to the Lord and allow His tears to wipe away our bitterness, we can see positive outcomes despite, or perhaps because of, our pain.
Throughout history, when God’s people turn fully to Him, their burdens are lightened. The Lord is with you every step of the way. Sometimes He let’s you fall so you turn back to Him of your own accord. Sometimes He gives you a workout, pushing you to Love better, and sometimes He just says Trust me and waits for us to be strengthened, refined by what we cannot see or understand, by what burns like fire and wind but that cleans and purifies and cures in a way a simple snap of His fingers would not allow us to appreciate.
Whatever the reason for your suffering, remember, you are not alone. You are Loved.
Yes, you are so right. Such wisdom. God bless you!