What good is it for God to be with you, if he doesn’t help?

What good is it? From the Bible, we learn that eternity is at stake. That is a LOT LONGER far far far longer, than our short stay on earth.

Trust in God involves trusting him even when things aren't going the way you want them to, sadly.

theoneandonlypencil said:

Trust in God involves trusting him even when things aren't going the way you want them to, sadly.

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"Abiding in Jesus" means abiding through difficult times as well as good times. We must abide until the end or "endure to the end" as Scripture says....
Wonderfully ! If things went the way WE wanted them to, we would SINK! As Scripture says "There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is destruction"...
Trusting God and Relying on Him is the only way to live and even to learn how to live.
(yes, the flesh must suffer; the NT says the sons receive scourging and that anyone who is not scourged is not a son. The Father knows perfectly what is needed , and accomplishes what is best) ....

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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God does things His way not your way. He has answers and He has solutions. But He is not a genie in a bottle and he does not give you three magic wishes. People that get results are people that know how to pray and they know what to ask for.

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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Perhaps changing the mind frame from “How do I get God to do what I want” to “not my will but Your will Heavenly Father!”

It is tough suffering and watching our loved ones suffer. Recommend going back to the Cross and be reminded of the suffering Jesus Christ God the Son suffered on our behalf. Try looking at the anguish Jesus went through in Gethsemane from the Father’s perspective.

Such an approach is humbling when we see our loved ones suffer.

Perhaps revisit some truths we sometimes forget.

As ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord —Colossians 2:6

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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I have no answer for you, but I am sorry that you and your wife are facing these hardships and I hope that things improve for you.

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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I'm very sorry to hear of the great difficulties you face. It is a bitter, bitter thing to see the one we love most in this world hurt in a way we can do nothing to remedy.

Questions fill my mind as I think on your words above: Will your situation be improved by turning your back on God? Will you be able to make better sense of your wife's illness without Him? Will you find greater comfort and strength in a world from which you've excluded God?

Without God, your wife's life and disease are meaningless; without God, she is an accident of nature, afflicted without purpose, the victim of sheer bad luck, and will one day die and cease to be, utterly forgotten in time. How is this preferable to trusting in God come what may? How is this better than trusting that the eternal life for which we've been made by God awaits us all on the other side of the grave? How is this a more desirable way to think than to trust that God is working toward good ends even in the worst of circumstances.

Job was terribly afflicted. He lost all of his children, his wealth, and his health. What was his response? "Though God slay me, yet will I trust Him." Why did Job not rail against God, despising Him for allowing such awful hardships to fall upon Job and his family? What did Job understand about God that you do not?

Where has God been in your life prior to your wife falling ill? What place has He occupied in your life before the present difficulties occurred? It's hard to see how you would turn on God, as you seem strongly tempted to do, if your earlier experience of Him was deep, and rich, and transformative, as the Bible says truly walking with God always is.

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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When all the trials are over you are either going to be closer to God or further away. Which it is is up to you. His promise is to work all things for good for those who love Him.

I understand the frustration and the pain, but you need to put them in perspective. For me heaven is the icing on the cake. For now my main focus is on His presence in my life as I go through the trials. And over time, it's rewarding to see His work in me increasing, transforming me further into a mature image of His Son. Yes, the price is high, but it's the best game in town - the only game in town, really. And no matter how you decide, life is going to exact a high price anyway, so why not do it the right way?

Spiritual perspective. Be sure to remain in the Word, through reading, meditation, and prayer.

“For our light afflictions which is but for a moment works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

“Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there. But all of it is totally meaningful. Every millisecond of your pain, from the fallen nature or the fallen man, every millisecond of your misery in the part of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that. Therefore, do not lose heart. Of course, you can’t see what it’s doing. Don’t look to what is seen. But take these truths and day by day focus on them. Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach his word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.” – John Piper.

Questioning Brother said:

Aikl: it would be more comforting if it was random, rather Thant the plan of done who makes the false claim of loving me.

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How do you know that the things that have befallen your wife (and you) are God's plan? God certainly foreknows all that will happen but His foreknowledge does not make Him the Cause of all that happens. It is a basic mistake in logic to think that because God foreknows a thing it must surely, or necessarily, come to pass. God knows that Bob will eat Corn Flakes on Saturday morning and so Bob will eat Corn Flakes on Saturday morning. But Bob could have chosen to eat Cheerios rather than Corn Flakes, and if Bob had made such a choice, God would have foreknown it. Bob, though, is the one who is deciding what will happen, not God. Bob is not forced by God's foreknowledge to make the choice God foreknows Bob will make. So, then, it is not by any means certain God has caused your wife's illness and the resulting financial burdens you face to come to pass. Regardless, God has promised to walk with and support those who love Him. That love, though, is not extended to us in the form of "I'll do whatever you want me to do," but rather in the promises of God to save us from sin unto an eternity with Him, make us more like Christ, and walk with us through life's inevitable storms.

Questioning Brother said:

Also, the other side by that point would be a truly epic case if too little, too late.

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God has His eye on eternity. He has a much longer view of our lives than we do. And it is for the eternity to come, not the here-and-now, that He is mostly working in our lives. The Big Show comes after we are gone from this planet and God deals with us in light of this fact, unwilling to act in our lives in a way that would distract us from eternity, that would make us shortsighted, and cause us to become preoccupied with the present. This world is not our home and God weans us from it over the course of our lifetime, readying us for the eternity to follow.

Questioning Brother said:

job didn’t have all the facts. It wasn’t what he knew , but what he didn’t know.

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Job didn't need to know. And, in fact, he never did know what had transpired between God and Satan. Job was content to acknowledge that God was the Boss and can do precisely as He likes in the universe He created and sustains moment-by-moment.

Questioning Brother said:

If he had known he was suffering for a bet, he wouldn’t have needed prompting from his wife.

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No, I don't think so. Job could have protested stridently to God, pressing to know why he had been subject to such hardship. But when confronted by God, Job "abhorred himself," confessing in shame his great hubris in questioning God at all. Job saw God much more clearly than we do, I think. We are far too quick to shove our fist under God's nose and curse Him for not giving us a life of ease and affluence. God sure puts up with a lot of awful nonsense from us.

I am walking along side a friend whose lovely wife is in kidney failure. His only son is in jail for a crime he may not have even committed. He has also been forced to retire from his job at a young age, as has his wife due to her illness, leaving them with a very difficult financial future. This is as close to Job's story as any I have ever personally seen.

It is clear to me that God intends for my friend to understand something important about Him in these circumstances, though I don't exactly know what.

But as for me, God answered my my prayer that I might be able to minister to someone, to be a vessel for God's love in my friend's life. By walking along side my friend, I have become much more bold in my faith than ever before. The Lord has used me to help my friend cope and give his family resources they would not have had access to any other way. And I have learned the wisdom and importance of spiritual preparation for difficulty. I would not have understood it any other way.

My friend's suffering has taught me so much. Perhaps there is someone God wants to instruct through your suffering? Maybe you, or maybe someone else. Job's Witness was ultimately a powerful one. Yours could be too.

My God Bless you. May He ease your suffering and give you peace.

Questioning Brother said:

As soon as God chose not to say, “no that won’t happen,” it became His plan.

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A Grandmaster chess player does not mandate the choices of his opponent, even though he acts to prevent some of the tactics of his opponent. The one playing against the Grandmaster is free to choose his moves, to mount any sort of attack he thinks will lead to victory, even though the Grandmaster may cut off certain strategies and maneuvers with his own moves. It doesn't follow, then, that when God prevents something from happening, He has shaped all that has happened to that point or will happen from that point. He can stop our plans without entirely co-opting them.

Questioning Brother said:

If you want to get technical ALL suffering is the result of his choice to put the tree in the garden.

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No, it is the result of the choice Adam and Eve made regarding the Tree. The Tree had no power to harm so long as A&E avoided it, as God had commanded. If the Tree had not been in the Garden, Adam and Eve would have had no real choice to disobey God, their obedience would have been forced by circumstance, not the result of a free choice to love (and so obey) their Creator.

Questioning Brother said:

ALL of the problems on this earth flow from that decision.

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No, they flow from the free choices of people not to love God.

Questioning Brother said:

He knew what would happen and chose the path that would cause innumerable deaths and billions upon billions to burn in Hell for eternity.

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No, all who enter eternity apart from God have chosen again and again throughout their lives to do so.

No one gets out of this life alive. God kills us all. But as the Giver and Sustainer of all life He is in a unique position also to be the Taker of all life. God never murders anyone; He simply does what He wishes with what He has made.

Questioning Brother said:

His only anchor on God came from believing that God was watching and cared.

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Did God leave Job childless, destitute and diseased? No. But a God who didn't care, who was evil and cruel, would have left Job to stew permanently in his own unhappy juices.

Job understood that God can do with His Creation anything that He pleases. We have no more right to anything from God, no more right to be treated by God in a particular way, than a clay pot made by a Potter has the right to tell the Potter how it will be treated. We exist by God's will and power and we continue to exist by His pleasure. We have no rights but what God chooses to give to us. And what God has given, He has every right to take away.

These are hard, even scary, truths. But God is not a "tame lion," who is obliged to put our needs and wants before His own, who can be called to account to us for His actions. He is not cruel or capricious but He is not under our thumb either, acting always in ways we understand or that please us.

It may help to tell you that I have had to endure significant suffering over the past few years. I have three discs in my lower back that have given way. The bottom-most disc, in particular, is very bad. I could not work for over two years, spending most of my days in pain and immobility (I can't take pain killers because my stomach reacts violently to them). I eventually went bankrupt. I used to be a powerlifter (30 + years) and a martial arts instructor (25 years). Now, I often can't carry a bag of groceries. So, I know something of suffering and of the financial crises that prolonged and acute illness incur. It is in this context that I have written what I have to you.

Questioning Brother said:

As soon as God chose not to say, “no that won’t happen,” it became His plan. He chose to let us go through this. If you want to get technical ALL suffering is the result of his choice to put the tree in the garden. ALL of the problems on this earth flow from that decision. He knew what would happen and chose the path that would cause innumerable deaths and billions upon billions to burn in Hell for eternity.

mad for Job, I disagree. His only anchor on God came from believing that God was watching and cared. Knowing that he not only wasn’t acting, but approved the problems would have broken that off of him.

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Your rationale makes you sound like the devil himself talking. He said the same things of Job and God, did you miss the end of the book of Job ? The part where Job agrees with God when God shows up on the scene and then is blessed 3 fold. Surely you must have missed that or just don't count that as worth while. But even if God did absolutely nothing but secure you with eternal life after this flash in the pan on earth is done then He gave you something you never deserved in the first place, nor I, nor our brothers and sisters in Christ.
You never will make any gains if you just decide to buck God. One thing Jesus out right told us we would have in this life is tribulation.

The devil is winning this battle but he already lost the war. And believe me, I'm not downplaying your struggles at all but you need God now more than ever.

Questioning Brother said:

God repeatedly promises to be with you in the Bible. What good is that if when trouble strikes and you need him to act , he won’t? My faith is dying due to repeated prayers for healing for my wife(multiple strokes and all the attendant situations that come with that), financial issues, and all of the stress from the other stuff. So what good is it for God to be with you if he won’t do one damn thing to help?

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Find a good audio Bible and start listening to the Psalms while you walk somewhere lovely. You will totally be able to relate and they will lift your spirits and help you accept this trial. Our God is awesome, you will see.

Questioning Brother said:

I am sorry for your suffering aikl, but no, hearing about another’s suffering doesn’t help.

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Thanks for the sympathy. I described the general outline of the suffering I've endured the past few years, however, not to garner sympathy but to demonstrate that suffering does not necessitate an angry, resentful spirit toward God. Why is my response to hardship to move toward God and yours to move away? I think it has much to do with our differing perspectives on God and the difference in experience we have had of Him. When people are walking with God in intimate, joyful fellowship with Him, suffering does not erode that fellowship but increases it, driving the sufferer deeper into God for support, and comfort, and strength. When a person is not walking well with God, suffering has the opposite effect, driving a wedge of anger and frustration between that person and their Maker.

But this is part of what God intends suffering to do: reveal where we are really at with Him. Suffering strips off all of the illusions, all of the self-deceptions we work upon ourselves in our walk with God. We see when we are really hurting how we truly view God, what we actually believe about Him.

Having seen the truth of where you're at with God, you are not doomed to a broken relationship with Him. God holds out His comfort and strength to all who would find refuge in Him. He does not promise to take our suffering from us - I know this very well - but He does promise to carry us through it. And He has. He has not lifted my pain but He has given me the wherewithal to endure it. He will do the same for you, but His way, not yours.