Everything Sad Will Come Untrue

Understandably, the problem of suffering and evil in the world is a major stumbling block for many accepting Christianity. It can seem that either God is not good (his plan includes the misery of mankind), or he is not sovereign over the events of history. Both are not comforting thoughts. Theologians and philosophers have grappled with this predicament for millennia, with many different conclusions.

• Perhaps, God has granted mankind freewill, and suffering and evil are as a result of mankind’s rebellion and attempt to live life apart from God.
• Perhaps, God allows evil, because his glory and love are best made known in laying down his life for those who rejected him.
• Perhaps, if we could hold the whole horizon of eternity in our view, as God does, we would see every suffering and every action of God to be a mercy.

As those who have gone before us, I do not have a complete answer to the question of evil and suffering. I can by no means pretend to have tasted the extremes of human suffering and misery, but all of us as humans have experienced degrees of loss, and anguish of the soul. For myself, during the night, I have experienced the Lord’s goodness sustain me. I have tasted that he is good and that is enough. I look ahead to the greater glory of the world to come.

Here is what Dostoevsky wrote in the Brothers Karamazov,

“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage… that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

In other words, what is to come will be so much greater, so much brighter, that all that has gone before, good and bad, will pale in comparison. As J.R.R. Tolkien said, “The birth, death and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.”

 “The birth, death and resurrection of Jesus means that one day everything sad will come untrue.” J.R.R. Tolkien

I have friends who have lost children at a young age. The loss of a child is one of the single most devastating things that can happen to us as humans. The idea that this sadness could one day come untrue, seems flimsy and far-fetched. But what if these children who were lost weren’t dead, but only sleeping? What if this life, in this present age, is fading away and the true reality is coming, and those little ones will wake into the life of a new and better kingdom? Where there is no pain, no death. Where they will spend eternity with their parents and all those in Christ in paradise. This would not remove the heartache of the temporary loss, but it would put it in the context of eternity. This life we live now matters, but it is only the beginning, the first dark brushstrokes of the picture of infinite, eternal redemption.

Read what the apostle Paul says about suffering and death.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18

“For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.” 1 Thess 4:14

As for me, I trust in the goodness of God. I trust that the One who suffered in my place, who walks with me in the dark hours of my soul, who formed me from the dust, will one day reveal a glory that will utterly suffice for the evils that have gone before. For ‘he makes all things beautiful in its time’. Ecl 3:11