Today I was reading out of Deuteronomy with my kids. When we got to the chapters about blessings and cursing, I felt like we needed to stop and chat about it. It would be easy to look at the current Covid disease and think God was “punishing” the people of earth with sickness because of sin. I have come to believe that God doesn’t “send” sickness to teach us a lesson, but I do believe He may remove his hand of protection and allow us to experience the sin and fallenness of this world.
I was trying to think of how to explain this to my elementary age kids. I ended up being reminded of a friend’s child who recently ran away. It gave me a great picture of how I think God is with us. The illustration I shared went something like this…
“Imagine you are in our house where you are safe, warm and fed. You decide you want to do things your own way, and choose to walk out the front door and leave. Once outside you eventually become cold, hungry and in danger. That danger was there in the world all along. I as your parent did not send it to “teach you a lesson” and to get you to come back home. I had, however, been sheltering you and protecting you from it all along. While I did NOT send the danger, I do hope the danger will cause you to run back home to my loving protection.”
I truly believe this is how God is with us. There is so much sin, evil and death in the world. God daily protects us in ways we are completely unaware of. Sometimes like rebellious children we decide we want to go it on our own. This must break God’s heart, as it would any parent who sees their kid heading towards danger. Since God is a gentleman he doesn’t force us to stay safe in the house. He allows us to wander out into the world and to experience very painful lessons, but He’s standing at the ready to welcome us back home the second we reach out.
I also want to be clear that I don’t believe all suffering is because we have done something wrong or walked away. Even Jesus who was sinless suffered. We live in a fallen world and still experience many of the effects of sin. I just don’t personally believe God “sends” hardship and sickness into our life to teach us something, although he does sometimes “allow” them. I do believe that He does use those things, though, to work all things together for our good and His glory. (Romans 8:28)