By Chaplain Joe Hammiel

Editor's Note: While this isn't the kind of article that we generally post on DetroitBuzz.com, I think it's important that we as a community keep our eyes and ears open to what is happening in the world around us, and especially to our armed forces. It's easy for us to be insulated against what's happening overseas and to go along with our daily lives. Chaplain Joe Hammiel is stationed somewhere in Iraq, and for the first time, one of the soldiers from his battalion was killed. What follows are his thoughts.

This past week, the unthinkable happened in our battalion. One of our own, one with whom we have worked and sweat and laughed and trained was killed by an improvised explosive device. Because we are in a combat zone surrounded by terrorists who strike out at us from the shadows, we all knew that death was a possibility. But at this moment, the reality of it cuts us to the core of our beings and makes us cry out at the injustice of it all! SSG Samuel Castle was so young (only twenty-six years old); he was in the prime of life; and he was married with two beautiful children. And now a mother and two little ones endure the pain and grief of being separated from one they loved dearly.

Where is God in all of this? Why does God seem so present a friend when things are going well for us and so absent a helper when we need Him the most? Why does He seem so arbitrary about answering our prayers? (Sometimes He rescues us from danger; sometimes He doesn’t.) And please, let’s not start offering trite little religious clichés that we’ve all heard when tragedy strikes. Clichés like, “It must have been his time to go,” or “It was God’s will for him,” or even worse (one I heard at a funeral) “God wanted another rose for His garden, so He took him to Heaven.”

Instead of clichés, let’s try to look at things truthfully and wisely. If we’re honest, maybe we would admit to feeling a little disappointed with the way God does things on earth; maybe even a little angry (it’s okay to admit it – God can take it!). A cursory glance at life on planet earth would lead most of us to believe that a person who has experienced little or no suffering is more the exception than the rule. So why does God seem so absent when we need Him, when we’re in the middle of all our pain? Why does he appear so random in the way He answers (or doesn’t answer) our prayers?

In the Bible, in the book of Job, the problem of suffering is carefully examined. For those unfamiliar with the story, Job is a wealthy, well-respected, father of ten who, in a very short time, loses everything, including all ten children and even his own physical health. Things are so bad that Job’s wife suggests that he “curse God and die.” Then, for forty-one chapters Job and his friends explore the problem of pain and suffering. Job wants God to appear to him personally so that he can plead his case about the injustice of his circumstances. After all, even God said that Job was a righteous man.

Unlike many of the heartbreaking stories we read or hear of in the news, Job’s story ends with God restoring everything he lost – he even gets a personal appearance by God. But most of us who have faced tragedy in our lives have a different tale to tell. We know that the “bad guys” often seem to come out on top, our bank accounts and health are often left un-restored, and we are left to bear the scars of our suffering for the rest of our lives.

Philip Yancey, in his book Disappointment with God, offers some great insights into these difficult questions about the pain and suffering that are so much a part of our existence. He writes, “So what, exactly, can we expect from God? Perhaps the best way to view the ending of Job is to see it not as a blueprint for what will happen to us in this life, but rather as a sign of what is to come. It stands as a sweet, satisfying symbol, a solution to one man’s disappointment that offers us a foretaste of the future.” Yancey goes on to point out that,

“The Bible never belittles human disappointment . . . but it does add one key word: temporary. What we feel now, we will not always feel. Our disappointment is itself a sign, an aching, a hunger for something better. And faith is, in the end, a kind of homesickness – for a home we have never visited but have never once stopped longing for.”Yancey reminds us that while suffering is a reality for us, it is also something that God will one day remove forever – when He comes again to set everything right!

We really can’t answer the “why” questions about our pain and suffering because God doesn’t answer them for us. Even Job received no answer to the “why” questions he was asking. Instead, God basically said to Job, “Things are much more complicated than you know. I know what I’m doing and you know what I’m like. Trust me, despite the circumstances.” We can’t know the answers to the tough questions about suffering, but based on the character of God revealed in the Bible and in the life of His Son, Jesus Christ, we can know that, one day, He will make all things new!

In the meantime, we still feel the pain of losing someone we have known and loved. But this pain is also a reminder that we were made for something more – something better. Rick Warren in his book, The Purpose Driven Life, writes, “Even though we know everyone eventually dies, death always seems unnatural and unfair. The reason we feel we should live forever is that God wired our brains with that desire!”

Right now, our hearts ache and we grieve because SSG Castle’s life was snuffed out in the blink of an eye. And I can’t help but believe that if he could tell us anything now, he would remind us that life on earth is short (even if we live to be a hundred), that people matter more than possessions or careers, and that a life that honors God through a relationship with Jesus is the only kind of life that really matters.

“Weeping may go on all night, but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30.5, NLT)