Amen. Romans 8:28 is better experienced than explained. Only God can do that. And since we live by faith, he might not even explain it to us.
Believing Christians have a hard time believing God is good when they are experiencing so many bad things. Physical illness, family p 83 dysfunction, emotional distress, natural disaster, acts of terrorism—any number of tragedies can shake the hardiest of faiths.
The natural temptation for caring pastors in these situations is to attempt to explain the hardship or tragedy. We try to figure out what God is up to; often we even try to defend God’s reputation in the face of his apparent disregard or inaction. Worse, we sometimes try and decipher the meaning of the tragedy as though we were privy to the mind of God.
A true physician of souls is not a soothsayer or medium. We never attempt to read the tea leaves of tragedy and mayhem here in this world to discover the hidden meaning behind them. The fact is that we human beings, pastors included, are unable to discern God’s disposition by decoding the events in a person’s life. Our pastoral role in hardship or tragedy is not to venture into an area for which we are neither licensed or authorized, but rather to be a partner in that individual’s suffering. We weep with those who weep just as we rejoice with those who rejoice. But there is no healing in our empathetic listening—or our sympathetic tears either. Rather, we point the suffering person to the one place that God has opened up his heart to the world and disclosed his true attitude toward suffering humanity: the cross. Sometimes the only comfort we have to bring is this: We have a suffering God.
Harold L. Senkbeil, The Care of Souls: Cultivating a Pastor’s Heart (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 82–83.
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