God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

I remember it like it were yesterday. I was fresh out of the hospital, barely out of my teens, and sitting at our family table with my friend Steve Estes with our Bibles and sodas. We had become acquainted when he heard I had tough questions about God and my broken neck. He also knew I wasn’t asking with a clenched fist, but a searching heart.

So, Steve made a bargain with me. I’d provide sodas and my mother’s BLT sandwiches, and he would provide — as best he could — answers from the Bible. Though I cannot reproduce our exact words, the conversations left such an indelible impression on me that even now, over fifty years later, I can capture their essence.

“I always thought that God was good,” I said to him. “But here I am a quadriplegic, sitting in a wheelchair, feeling more like his enemy than his child! Didn’t he want to stop my accident? Could he have? Was he even there? Maybe the devil was there instead.”

Decades later, Steve would tell me, “Joni, when I sat across from you that night, I was sobered. I mean, I had never met a person my age in a wheelchair. I knew what the Bible said about your questions, and a dozen passages came to mind from studying in church. But sitting across from you, I realized I had never test-driven those truths on such a difficult course. Nothing worse than a D in algebra had ever happened to me. But I looked at you and kept thinking, If the Bible can’t work in this paralyzed girl’s life, then it never was for real. So, Joni, I cleared my throat and I jumped off the cliff.”

God Permits What He Hates

That night, Steve leaned across the family table, and said, “God put you in that chair, Joni. I don’t know why, but if you will trust him instead of fighting him, you will find out why — if not in this life, then in the next. He let you break your neck, and perhaps I’m here to help you discover at least a few reasons why.”

Steve paused and then summed it up with ten words that would change my life:

God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.

The sentence hit me like a brick. Its simplicity made it sound trite, but it nevertheless enticed me like an enigmatic riddle. It seemed to hold some deep and mysterious truth that piqued my fascination. “Tell me more,” I said. “I want to hear more about that.” I was hooked.

“God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.”

Over that summer with Steve, I would explore some of the most puzzling passages in Scripture. I wanted to know how God could permit hateful things without being in cahoots with the devil. How could he be the ultimate cause behind suffering without getting his hands dirty? And to what end? What could God possibly prize that was worth breaking my neck?

He Does Not Afflict Willingly

So, let me parrot some of Steve’s counsel to me that summer. He started off with Lamentations 3:32–33:

Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men. (NIV)

In the span of a verse, the Bible asserts that God “brings grief,” yet “he does not willingly bring . . . grief.” With that, Steve was able to reassure me from the top that although God allowed my accident to happen, he didn’t get a kick out of it — it gave him no pleasure in permitting such awful suffering. It meant a lot to hear that.

But what about my question of who was in charge of my accident? When it comes to who is responsible for tragedy — either God or the devil — Lamentations 3 makes it clear that God brings it; he’s behind it. God is the stowaway on Satan’s bus, erecting invisible fences around the devil’s fury and bringing ultimate good out of Satan’s wickedness.

Buck Stops with God

“God’s in charge, Joni, but that doesn’t mean he actually pushed you off the raft,” Steve said. “Numbers 35:11 pictures someone dying in an ‘accident,’ calling it ‘unintentional.’ Yet elsewhere, of the same incident, the Bible says, ‘God lets it happen’ (Exodus 21:13). It’s an accident, but it’s God’s accident. God’s decrees allow for suffering to happen, but he doesn’t necessarily ‘do’ it.”

These were deep waters: God decreeing, but not necessarily doing? When I pushed Steve further, he smiled. “Welcome to the world of finite people trying to understand an infinite God. What is clear is that God permits all sorts of things he does not approve of. He allows others to do what he would never do — he didn’t steal Job’s camels or entice the Chaldeans to seize Job’s property, yet God didn’t take his hand off the wheel for a nanosecond.”

Then he added, smiling, “So, the buck stops with God, Joni, even when people think he had nothing to do with your accident, that it was all your responsibility for taking a careless dive into shallow water!”

Okay, I got it. God permits what he hates. But what about the next part — the part about him permitting awful things in order to accomplish what he loves? I still could not imagine what good and lovely thing would be worth the horrible cost of pain and quadriplegia.

Who Crucified Jesus?

When it comes to the old cost-versus-benefit problem, God first put himself to the test. He willed the death of his own Son, but he took no delight in the actual agony. God planned it, but Satan was the instigator.

Think of the treason, torture, death, and murder that led up to Christ’s crucifixion. How could those awful things be God’s will? Yet Judas Iscariot and the whole bunch, including the Romans who nailed Jesus to the tree, did “whatever [God’s] hand and [God’s] plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 4:28).

So, God as much as said to everyone who screamed for Christ’s crucifixion, “Okay, so you guys want to sin? When you do, I’ll make certain you do it in a way that maintains your guilt, yet performs my will!” In short, God steered their devilish scheme to serve his own marvelous ends. A divine plan that would bring good to his people and maximum glory for himself.

“And the glorious plan that was worth the horrible cost of the cross was,” Steve said quietly, “salvation for a world of sinners.” I would soon learn how suffering and sin are related.

Defeating Evil with Evil

“Joni, he cares about your afflictions, but they are merely symptoms of a deeper problem. God cares less about making you comfortable, and more about teaching you to hate your transgressions and to grow up spiritually to love him.

“In other words, God lets you feel much of sin’s sting through suffering, while you are heading for heaven. And it should constantly remind you of what you are being delivered from. So, one form of evil, your pain and paralysis, is turned on its head to defeat another form of evil, and that is your bitterness, resentments, anxieties, fears, and I could go on — all to the praise of God’s wisdom.”

It was becoming clearer. God permitted what he hated on the hill of Calvary to accomplish what he loved — my salvation and his honor in saving me. So, Satan ended up slitting his own throat, because the world’s worst murder became the world’s only salvation.

Suffering for the Rest of Them

“Joni, this perfectly parallels your life,” Steve said. “God permitted what he hated — your spinal cord injury — to accomplish what he loves, and that is ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory’” (Colossians 1:27).

“But it doesn’t stop with you,” Steve reminded me. “Just as Christ had to suffer to reach a lost world, you too will learn to suffer for the sake of others. It’s no secret. He wants your afflictions to be a platform to win others to Christ.” My story, then, is much like the story of Joseph and his wicked brothers.

Joseph flat-out said to them in Genesis 50:20, “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” Yes, God permitted my hateful paralysis, but his love goes far beyond Christ in me. He wants others to experience Christ in them, their hope of glory!

Fifty Years Later

It has been over fifty years since that summer when I spent so many nights with Steve by the family table. He is now senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Pennsylvania, while I am a “Joseph” being used of God at Joni and Friends to save lives by telling people with disabilities the good news.

People are sometimes mystified by my joy, especially since I now deal with chronic pain. But God shares his joy on his terms, and those terms call for us, in some measure, to endure suffering, as did his precious Son. But that’s okay. For when I hold fast to God’s grace in my afflictions, the joy he gives tops everything. It’s how my so-called hateful paralysis now makes me so happy.

Yet nowhere near as happy as I will be in heaven. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

“God will exponentially atone for every tear, and will abundantly reward us for every hurt.”

True, God permits awful things, but (to paraphrase Dorothy Sayers) something so grand and glorious is going to happen in the world’s finale that it will more than suffice for every pain we experienced on this planet. God will exponentially make up for every tear (Psalm 56:8), and will abundantly reward us for every hurt (Romans 8:18). Best of all, God will make plain the mysterious ways of his will.

Has Horrible Happened to You?

So, I pass these ten words to you: “God permits what he hates to accomplish what he loves.” If you are struggling as I once did, trying to understand how a good God could allow horrible things to happen in your life, let me jump off the cliff here.

God’s decrees have allowed your afflictions. I don’t know why, but if you will trust him instead of fighting him, you will find out why — if not in this life, then in the next. He permitted your hardships, and perhaps I’m here to help you unravel the beautiful riddle that will bless your life, enrich others, bring maximum glory to your Savior, and make your heavenly estate more joyful than you can now imagine.

In the hinterland of Senegal, in the middle of a remote field on the outskirts of a village, stands a white metal sign. Emblazoned in blue is the name of a humanitarian organization and the date of its mission: August 2015. According to the sign, the organization’s mission is “to provide water for the waterless.” Behind the sign stands a small, concrete water tower, about ten feet in height, positioned next to an open well. Surprisingly, however, when I came across this well in January 2016, there were no footpaths to the site, no signs of recent use. Upon inspection, the well was dry.

To the one who thirsts, there is nothing quite so disheartening as an empty well. Parched tongues long for water, and God prepares his people to be cupbearers for the thirsty. He intends for us to dig new wells, to feed hungry mouths, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick and imprisoned (Matthew 25:35–36). Yet as Christians move toward need, we do so not as the world does. For we know that even if we could provide access to water throughout the whole world, only Christ can fill the soul’s deepest well. Christian charity is unlike the world’s because, in every act of serving, we aim to meet a deeper need and slake a deeper thirst.

Churches for the Poor

From their earliest days, Christian churches have served the needs of surrounding communities, especially the poorest among them. Members of the early church were quick to sell their belongings in order to care for those among them who had need (Acts 4:34–35). And this generosity overflowed beyond the church. The Roman Emperor Julian (who reigned from 361–363), known in history as “the apostate” for his total rejection of Christianity, famously wrote in a letter to a pagan priest, “The impious Galileans [read Christians] support not only their own poor but ours as well” (Mission in the Early Church, 128).

One such “impious Galilean” was the fourth-century bishop Basil of Caesarea, who served during a time when a famine in the region brought economic devastation. “I shall be like Joseph,” he declared, “in proclaiming the love of my fellow man” (137). Basil opened the storehouses of the church, advocated for the relief of the hungry, and even oversaw the construction of a complex outside Caesarea called the basileas, which included housing, a hospital, and opportunities for work and the development of job skills. In a funeral oration for the beloved Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus said of him, “According to the Scripture [he] dealt food to the hungry and satisfied the poor with bread” (Oration 43.35).

The annals of Christian history are replete with examples such as Basil, followers of Christ who have understood that pure and undefiled religion includes visiting orphans and widows in their affliction (James 1:27). True faith, James explains, expresses itself with material care, giving those in distress “the things needed for the body” (James 2:16). The poor are everywhere and always with us, and one of the church’s tasks, and privileges, in the world is to care for their needs.

True religion basks in the abundance of God’s generosity and joyfully gives to others as an expression of the overflow of love received. Christians know that the fullest expression of God’s generosity is the gift of Christ, who left wealth and took up poverty so that he might make us rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). As recipients of God’s generosity, we are free to lavish on others what we have received, since we know that our heavenly Father will richly provide for us.

On its own, however, even the greatest humanitarian aid offers just a few drops of water to parched tongues. All who drink from these wells will thirst again, for suffering people’s greatest need is not the alleviation of their temporal suffering.

One Well Never Runs Dry

Adam and Eve’s cataclysmic fall from grace fractured every relationship for which they were designed. It fractured human relationships, generating strife between husband and wife (Genesis 3:16), brothers (Genesis 4:8), and mankind in general (Genesis 4:23–24). It also fractured their relationship with the rest of creation (Genesis 3:17–19). Their lives in the world would now be marked by untold suffering.

“In every act of serving, we aim to meet a deeper need and slake a deeper thirst.”

But the worst result of sin goes deeper. Their decision also fractured their relationship with God, leading them to hide from God’s presence rather than delight in it (Genesis 3:8). Restored relationship with God is every person’s greatest need. Service that stops with restoring human relationships or relieving physical or emotional suffering provides only momentary relief by comparison. Without calling people to repent of their sin and turn to the God who offers eternal life, all the humanitarian assistance in the world is like trying to extinguish a forest fire with a thimbleful of water. As Jeremy Treat writes,

While Christ makes us whole again, the greatest accomplishment of the cross is that we are made at-one with God. And this is the key. If all the ills of the world were healed, all the injustices made right, and all the sadness undone, but we still were not right with God, then it would only be a momentary relief in our suffering and in our eternal longing for God. (The Atonement, 158)

Christians’ work in the world doesn’t stop with serving at a local soup kitchen or helping a next-door neighbor with a meal in a time of distress. We move relentlessly toward suffering and need with the knowledge that everyone we meet has a deep thirst in the soul. Our primary aim as Christians is to point people to living water, a well that never runs dry (John 4:13–14).

How to Love Your Neighbor

Jesus said that the two greatest commandments, on which depend all the Law and Prophets, are “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37, 39).

Reflecting on the two great commandments, Augustine writes, “Our good, the final good . . . is nothing other than to cling to [God]. . . . We are enjoined to love this good with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength.” That is, God himself is the final good, “the source of our happiness” and “the end of all desire.” Turning then to consider what it means to love oneself, Augustine says, “He who loves himself wants nothing other than to be happy.” And true happiness is found only in clinging to God. What then does it mean to love one’s neighbor as oneself?

When a person who now knows what it means to love himself is commanded to love his neighbor as himself, what else is he commanded to do but, so far as possible, to urge his neighbor to love God? (City of God 10.3)

To put it simply, if we want to do people the most good, we will point them to God.

To really love our neighbors, to serve others in this world as Christians, our ministry cannot simply supply people with the sorts of wells that will soon run dry. Reflecting further on Basil’s ministry to the poor, Gregory says that he also provided “the nourishment of the Word . . . wherewith souls are fed and given to drink . . . a food which does not pass away or fail, but abides forever” (Oration 43.36). Basil saw what Augustine discovered: the truest fulfillment of every need, longing, and desire can only be found in the one who is the source of all happiness and the end of all desire.

After rising from the dead, Christ sent his disciples as his witnesses into the world (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8). He made them ministers not of mere alleviation but of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18–19). Their message concerned the forgiveness of sins and the restoration of relationship with God in Christ. This hope is ultimately what we have to offer. And we offer it as we express with deeds of kindness and service the generous grace of God. While we work hard to alleviate the ills in the world due to the curse, we ultimately point people to the curse lifter.

Come and Drink

Opportunities to offer water to the thirsty surround us every day. We find them in our family members, our neighbors, our friends, and our coworkers. We see them on the street and in the news. People suffer from broken and damaged relationships, unexpected losses and failures, deprivations of basic human needs, and much more. As individuals and as churches, we rightly steward what God has given to meet those needs.

True religion still expresses itself in selfless, humble giving and serving. But our service is always designed to point people to the one who offers them eternal life. As we minister to the poor, we tell them about the one who became poor for our sake (2 Corinthians 8:9); as we offer food to the hungry, we speak of the bread of life (John 6:35); as we visit the sick and dying, we point to him who took our illnesses and bore our diseases (Matthew 8:17); and as we give cups of water to parched tongues, we tell them of him who said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37).

There are no women in the mosque down the street from us. When the call to prayer sounds before dawn, some women might kneel on their bedroom floors to do the ritual prayers, but they don’t go to the mosque to hear the mullah. They don’t worship alongside the men. If they go to a mosque at all, they enter a separate room where they cannot be seen.

Years ago, my husband and I visited a mosque school for religious leaders in Turkey. Through translators, we asked for a description of the Muslim conception of paradise. A graduate student told us it’s a beautiful place with a river flowing with wine, where men will be accompanied by 72 virgins with big, beautiful eyes. When I asked what women get, the student said, “They get to serve their husbands.” So, if Islam were true, and if I were a good Muslim, I would get to serve my husband alongside 72 young virgins for eternity. Allah is not a god who looks favorably upon women.

How different is the true God! Men and women were both created in his image, first man and then woman, with complementary bodies and roles (Genesis 1:26–27). (Islam does not teach that humans are created in God’s image.) God commissioned both men and women to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it,” exercising dominion over the earth as his representatives (Genesis 1:28).

When that image was tarnished through the fall, God sent his Son, Jesus, to restore the glory of God’s image in the world. Jesus died for the sins of Adam and Eve and all their offspring who would believe. Then, after rising from the dead, Jesus recommissioned his followers, this time to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). This is the mission of the church. Men and women who trust in Jesus participate in this mission together, filling the earth “with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Faithful Sisters in Many Seasons

As in the family, men and women have different roles in the church, but together we bear the image of Christ and display his glory to the world. We worship together. We pray together. We sing together. We listen to sermons together. And we speak the word to one another, male and female, knowing we are co-heirs “of the grace of life” (1 Peter 3:7).

As women, we don’t subvert God’s created order by preaching or having authority over men, but we are fellow saints and full participants in the household of God. Christ has given “the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12). The saints, male and female, do the work of ministry. And there is much ministry to do!

So, what might it look like for women to serve the church, and how might that ministry look different in the different seasons of our lives?

Single Women

Ann is a university student. She sits up front in church and brings other students with her. She’s busy with her studies during the week, so she makes it a point to spend Sundays with her church family. She and the other students fill the church with life and encourage others to share the gospel with the non-Christians they bring. In addition to writing for the school newspaper and heading up the campus pro-life club, Ann also serves in the church nursery once a month.

“The saints, male and female, do the work of ministry. And there is much ministry to do!”

Beth lives with a family from church. She cooks dinner for them once a week and regularly spends time with the teenage girls, walking the dog or baking something tasty. She also plays games with the youngest, a boy. She’s always ready to lend a helping hand when the church asks, she babysits children of the staff, and she doesn’t hesitate to meet with a pastor when she has a theological question.

Claire is an older single woman who runs the children’s ministry in her church and writes curriculum. She always has a baby on her hip and leads a small-group Bible study for preteens. She loves cooking big, healthy meals for families or groups of singles who come over to her apartment.

All three of these women are capitalizing on their singleness, investing time and energy into loving their neighbors and serving God’s people.

Married Women

Deb is a newlywed who just joined her church. She gathers with the saints at every opportunity, including Sunday school, Bible study, and a small group. She’s good at administration, so she’s organizing housing and transportation for the women’s retreat.

Erin is a mother of young children. She realizes the preciousness of these years, so she cuddles and talks to her infant, and she reads and plays with her toddlers. She has a small group of moms over to her house (with their toddlers) to study a book of the Bible. They discuss a few verses between interruptions over stolen toys or spilled Cheerios. Erin feels like she misses church too much (with all those little runny noses and coughs), but even when she misses, she makes sure to listen to the sermon online (often while nursing), prays for other members using the directory, and is in God’s word daily herself.

Fran homeschools, working hard to support her children. She has an open-door policy for younger women in need of advice. They watch her discipline her children and interact with her husband; they ask her questions about fighting sin. Often, these conversations happen on a walk with the dog or in the kitchen while she’s cooking a meal, but she also sets aside time for a book discussion with two women each week. She hosts out-of-town guests and a small group to support the ministry of her husband, an elder of the church.

Grace is a part-time accountant and the mother of four children in school. She shares the gospel with other school moms and uses her administrative gifts to help in the church office. Her friend Helen cried on her shoulder as she finally gave in to her unfaithful husband’s demand for a divorce. Grace counseled her through financial trouble and helped her in many other ways. She and her family enveloped Helen and her young children.

Iris is an empty nester. She came from a prosperity-gospel background, but the word of God penetrated her heart. She came to women’s Bible study, became a small-group leader, and then started teaching other women expositionally. But the extraordinary thing about her is her intentional hospitality and discipling. Instead of using her extra time for herself, she and her husband invited several women to live with them. A group of young women seem to hang on every wise word that comes from her mouth.

These married women are running full tilt for Christ and his church. But their ministries aren’t cookie-cutter. They’re suited to each woman’s life situation and gifts.

Widows

Jane lost her husband several years ago. She devotes her mornings to extended times of reading her Bible and praying. (She’s been in the word daily for decades. Imagine the wisdom that’s accumulated.) She has one prayer list of friends’ children who are struggling and another for missionaries and unreached people groups. She is always excited to see how God answers her prayers. She sends texts and makes phone calls to encourage those for whom she’s praying. She loves to show hospitality, often having her small group over or hosting baby or wedding showers. But it’s not just what she does for the church. As church members care for her with rides and finances, they are blessed, encouraged that they can help a dear sister in need.

I wonder how many people have been converted under the preaching of men who are being prayed for daily by widows.

In the “women only” room set off to the side of the mosque, women can pray without distracting the men who meet in the more ornate central room. Not so in the church of Christ. Here, women aren’t sequestered behind closed doors. We are full partners with our brothers in the work of ministry.

The singles, wives, and widow described above are ordinary, extraordinary women, intentionally using their time to build up the church. We can be so busy with life: studies, work, husbands, children. We were created to glorify God as we steward these things, but we were also created for more. The eternal purpose of God, realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, is to create the church (Ephesians 3:10–11).

There is much work to do, and every hand is needed in every season of life. Prayer, evangelism, administration, mercy ministries, counseling, giving, discipling, nurturing, Bible studies, teaching women and children, writing, advocacy, hospitality. These are only some of the ministries we women can enjoy.

As Paul says, “We are [God’s] workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). What good works does God have for you to do, sister? You might ask yourself these questions:

For which ministries am I equipped?
What does my heart desire?
What needs does my church have?

Whatever your ministry looks like, giving yourself to ministry in the church will bring you satisfaction and fulfillment. It’s what you were created for. Walk in it.