I recently recalled a memory of my oldest son just before he learned to crawl. One morning I watched as Owen lay on the floor agonizingly pursuing a ball that lay just beyond his reach. He couldn’t quite crawl yet but could propel himself across the floor pushing off the tips of his toes and pulling himself forward with his hands. For about five minutes my wife and I watched, as he would nearly approach his long-awaited goal, only to inadvertently push the ball further away with every attempt to lay hold of it. Occasionally he would glance over his shoulder toward us with a look of frustration and grief. The expression on his face said, “Where are you guys!? … What are you doing!? … Can’t you see what I’m going through – why won’t you help me!?”  Meanwhile, we encouraged him on, “Keep going, son. You can do it!”  But alas, he couldn’t seem to understand our seemingly aloof and unsympathetic presence. Then, finally, after several failed attempts– Owen reached for the ball, triumphantly attaining his prize.

Either one of us could have compassionately walked over, picked up the ball, and placed it gently into Owen’s hands. Owen would have been satisfied, and our own hearts would have been relieved from watching our child endure hardship, struggle, frustration, and grief. Perhaps from Owen’s limited perspective, we were being distant, uncaring, and even cruel. Though, from our much larger perspective, we understood the process as essential to Owen’s growth and development. The skills he developed through the process would equip him as he goes on to accomplish more complex and difficult tasks. In this way, Owen’s vision is narrow, and his felt need is fleeting; while our vision for Owen is for his ultimate good.

If this is the case from the perspective of a parent toward his child, how much more with our infinitely wise Heavenly Father? We are like babes perpetually striving for the fulfillment of something that is just beyond our reach. Whether it be attaining some material good, relationship, status, or vocation. We often tend toward a narrow and singular focus, keeping only our transitory goals and perceived good in view, often looking to our heavenly Father, with eyes of lament and desperation, “why are things so difficult? Where are you at in all of this? Why are so aloof and apathetic toward my situation?”

Scripture is replete with story after story of human strife and suffering, and time and time again we see that even when God is silent, he is not absent. We also find that even if we do not always understand why certain events transpire as they do or why certain evils befall us, God is ever-present and fully aware of our plight.

Consider the story of Job who, unaware of the happenings behind the spiritual veil, is never privy to the ‘reasons’ behind his suffering. Job never gets the answers he initially sets out for, when God does finally answer him, it is with his presence (Job 38-41), which I think Job realizes he longed for most. Job’s final defense opens with his longing for his sense of “intimate friendship” with God (29:4), which was mediated through his experience of blessing, righteousness, and status (29:5-25).

God uses Job’s testing as a ground for refining Job’s faith, for broadening his imagination for God’s person, power, presence, and purposes. God shows up, or rather, God more fully reveals himself to Job. And that is enough. Job, once blind, now sees God in a new light. Job is transformed, not by answers but through an arduous journey that leads him to a deeper love and dependence upon God.

Suffering is the result of the broken state the pervades all of creation, including our own souls. Much of the striving and suffering we experience is the result of inordinate desires and the wrongs we inflict on ourselves and others. While there will come a day when God will set the world right, putting an end to natural disasters and disease, as well as all injustice, oppression, violence, greed, deception, and cowardice (Revelation 21-22). At the present moment, in his divine wisdom and mercy, God allows suffering to persist in allowing human freedom to persist.

God ordered the world, naturally and morally, according to his good pleasure and purposes. This ‘goodness’ is grounded in the character and nature of God, who is in essence the fulness of love, goodness, beauty, and truth. God created humanity with a capacity to love, which includes the capacity of freedom (choice) between trust or doubt, hope or fear, pride or humility, generosity or greed, dependence or autonomy, faithfulness or infidelity— ultimately, reciprocation or rejection of the love God extends to us. Humanity’s propensity toward the latter has wreaked havoc on the natural and social order. The natural and moral evil that pervades our world is the result of the first man and woman choosing not to love God, instead opting to approach life on their own terms. This is the reality we inhabit, faced with similar choices every day.

Yet, God continues to seek our greatest good. He allows hardship and struggles into our lives to expose our weakness and strip us of our arrogance and self-reliance. Rather than destroy us in his judgment (who would be left standing!), God longs to see us attuned to his heart, the source of all goodness and love. But it is a choice of whether we grow up into love or persist in our autonomous and self-gratifying patterns of behavior. Are we going to continue living life on our own terms, only turning to God for blessing or blame? Or, are we going to reciprocate unqualified love for God through a life of trust, hope, humility, generosity, dependence, and faithfulness.

That God desires our greatest good doesn’t mean that everything that befalls us is good. Evil, suffering, and death is a present reality we are all subject to. God does not insulate us from this hard reality but seeks to increasingly awaken us to a greater reality, promising to be with us and provide a way through adversity and suffering toward our ultimate good— greater intimacy with the Father as we grow into the fulness of our true selves in Christ. More often than not, this path won’t ‘feel’ good but it is for our greatest good.