I’ve been asked two questions repeatedly in the last few months. One came first from a friend within a week or two of the stay at home order. She said a friend of hers has been exploring Christian faith. But when COVID hit, he started having doubts. “Where,” he asked, “is God in the virus?” The second question came from another friend who sent an email a week or two later telling me that a celebrity was claiming that COVID was God’s judgment on us for our sins. “Is this true,” he asked. We’ll take up the second question – about COVID and judgment – in a future week, but the first one today.

The question about God and suffering is one I’ve been thinking since I took a philosophy class my sophomore year in college. You see, this man’s question is an ancient one, one that goes back to the biblical book of Job and beyond.

So this man isn’t the only one wondering what God has to do with the virus. We have the same question. And, like him, we want an answer. But what if there isn’t one, at least not of the sort we’re looking for. We live in a world full of suffering; suffering most of us pay little attention to because it doesn’t affect us. But then something happens to us and we’re full of questions. Why? Why me?

I do believe that there are answers, just not “the” answer, the one that helps make complete sense of all the evil and suffering in the world. The God we find in the Bible does not promise to intervene immediately in all our difficulties. But he is also not unaffected by our troubles. He grieves when we grieve. He weeps when we weep. And he is at work, but his ways are not our ways. He never promises to answer all our questions, at least not the way we pose them. Or to intervene in all our difficulties.

But he does promise us that he has a plan, a plan that will one day be fulfilled. It’s a plan that started with his son entering into our world (Christmas). And continued with the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus (Easter). And will conclude when Jesus returns and brings heaven and earth together into a new heaven and new earth. (Revelation 21-22.)

This virus is not God’s will. God did not cause it. God sees it as something evil, just like war and famine and sexual abuse. But he does promise to be with us. And often he intervenes, sometimes in dramatic ways. But his ongoing purposes have a longer time horizon than ours. So we need to trust him and work and to pray that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I say all of this not to belittle this man's question. It’s a valid and important one. My prayer is that he might find in the God of the Bible something that no other faith tradition has; a God who feels with us (see the Psalms); a God who enters our world and experiences our pain (Jesus); and a God who does not punish us as our sins deserve (Hinduism) but grants us grace and mercy. This side of eternity, we won’t have all the answers. But we must remember that meaningless suffering is the goal of the devil, but bringing meaning out of suffering is a work of God.