“Why Trust God? Part 2: "The Protection of God” by the Rev. Dr. Don Wahlig, September 14, 2025, Year C / Proper 19 (24) – Isaiah 61:1-3 ¨ Psalm 146:1-10
THEME: God uses suffering to test us and strengthen our faith. Keep the faith in order to experience this life with deeper hope and greater love, sure signs of the new life to come in the Kingdom.
We human beings are social creatures. Together, we can accomplish surprising, wonderful things. This has been true ever since the first group of cavemen faced a saber tooth tiger. They quickly discovered they were safer working together than trying to fight it alone. Over time, our social groups got larger. We discovered that communities need organization. Organizations need structure. Structures need leadership. We also discovered that good leaders provide a shared purpose and the guidance and inspiration to work toward it. The surest sign of good leadership is a community of people who are unified and flourishing, who emulate their leader by helping others flourish, too.
Bad leaders, on the other hand, care more for themselves than the well-being of the people they lead. The inevitable result of bad leadership is a divided, chaotic community of people who emulate their leader by seeking their own interests ahead of the well-being of others.
Scripture gives us vivid examples of both. Moses, Joshua, Deborah, and David. All of them were exceptionally good leaders. They cared for the people they led, held them together during tough times, and helped them flourish. Scripture also gives us numerous examples of bad leaders. Saul, the very first king, was not a good leader. Then after David and Solomon, came 400 years of rulers, the majority of whom were even worse than Saul. These leaders lived for themselves, left the people divided, and ultimately led them into exile. The fundamental difference between the good leaders and the bad ones boils down to one criterion: the good ones trusted God above all else.
As this morning’s psalm tells us, trusting God above all else is also the route to a life of well-being for you and me. Today we conclude our sermon series “Why Trust God?” We began last week by exploring Psalm 139. We agreed that we can trust God because of his nearness. God not only knows us intimately and never leaves us, but, most important, he loves us without limit. This week we see how God’s love translates into protection for those who trust him. Let’s see what Psalm 146 tells us about that.
First and foremost, this is a psalm of praise. The people are praising God because God alone is completely trustworthy. Unlike mortal princes, God reigns forever. And because he is eternal, his love and compassion never end. On the other hand, the plans of even the best, most faithful leaders come to an end when they die. The psalmist is saying that for all of us mortals, princes and paupers alike, true happiness only comes from trusting God above all else. As the psalm says, “Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.”
But wait a minute. Does that mean that God will never let anything bad happen to us? That cannot be true. We know that bad things happen to good, faithful people. But why would God allow that? The question we are asking has been around for millennia. If God is all-good, all-powerful, and all-loving, then why does he allow us to suffer? Why does God not protect us from suffering? Scholars have twisted themselves into a theological pretzel trying to answer this question. Ordinary people of faith have been seeking an answer since biblical times.
This is the question that Job was determined to ask God. When he finally gets the opportunity to ask it, God’s answer is “Who are you to question me?” Not a very helpful answer, if we are being honest.
A better way to think about this is to start by acknowledging that, for whatever reason, God permits suffering and evil to exist in this life. You and I and all the faithful are subject to this pain like everyone else. It is simply part of life as we know it. But what is different for people of faith like us is the conviction that God can and does work through our suffering to bring about his will. This is what Joseph discovered when he revealed himself to his brothers who had come down to Egypt seeking food. They were shocked that he was not only alive but thriving. The last time they laid eyes on him was when they sold him into slavery. Then Joseph realizes what God was up to. He says to his brothers, “You intended to do me harm, but God intended it for good.”
This is what Paul means in Romans when he writes, “all things work together for good for those who love the Lord.” When he says all things, that includes evil and suffering. God is the one who orchestrates this mysterious process. And that is just the problem, isn’t it? God’s ways are mysterious. As Isaiah says, God’s ways are not our ways. While we are in the midst of suffering, we rarely – if ever – get to know how God is working for our good.
In the meantime, it is up to us to trust that God has a plan, and his plan is what is best for us. As it was for Job and for Joseph, this is the test of our faith. The rewards for keeping faith are hope and love. Hope and love are the superpowers we have been given by God to follow Jesus Christ. Hope keeps fear and despair at bay. It gives us resilience and strength to persevere. It makes us open to the possibility of a brighter future, even if we cannot see it in the present moment. Hope does even more than that. Hope opens our hearts and minds to receive and share God’s love. For those who are suffering, the hope we have in Christ makes us receptive to others who share God’s love by entering into our suffering with us. That is what faithful, hopeful Christians do. We share God’s love with those who are suffering. We may not know the path God has laid out for us, but we can be sure that we will not walk it alone.
But what about those times when suffering and pain get worse instead of better, when illness ends in death, even the death of a loved one? Was that God’s plan? I know that some of you are familiar with this through firsthand experience. You are not alone. Few have ever known this pain and grief better than the Christian writer C.S. Lewis. Lewis was acquainted with suffering from an early age. When he was a little boy, his mother died of cancer. Then, his father sent him away to a strict boarding school with an abusive headmaster who was later declared clinically insane. As a young man, he fought in WWI. He was badly wounded. From his hospital bed, he pleaded for his father to visit him, but his father never did. As hard as all that was, it paled in comparison to the pain he felt when he lost his wife. Having found marital bliss late in life, he suffered the devastation of watching his bride succumb to cancer after just a few years of marriage.
Understandably, Lewis was bitter. He was angry with God. His prayers for healing went unanswered. It called into question everything he believed about God’s goodness. In his private journal he even wrote, “Go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence.” To say that this rocked his faith is an understatement of epic proportion. At one point, he feared that “we are really rats in a trap. Or worse still, rats in a laboratory... Was God a ‘Cosmic Sadist’ or an ‘Eternal Vivisector?’” Eventually, the cloud of grief began to lift and Lewis realized that God had not been experimenting with his faith. He was deepening it. Despite all his intellectual prowess and rational construction of arguments for God, Lewis’ faith was a “house of cards.” It was built on imagination and untested theory rather than the true conviction that comes from experience. It needed to be knocked down in order to be rebuilt and made stronger. And that is exactly what happened.
Sometimes, God answers prayer, not by granting the change we seek in others, but by changing us. The result, if we are open to it, is a deeper faith. Someday we will have the opportunity to ask God why he allows us to suffer. But by then, it will not matter. And we will not care. Because we will know the utter joy of living in God’s loving embrace. And we will be in the glorious company of all those who arrived there before we did.
Friends, God protects us not by sparing us from all pain and suffering, but by using them to test and strengthen our faith. That is how we learn to live this life with greater hope and deeper love, the sure signs of the eternal joy that lies ahead for us in the next life.
May it be so.
