Written by Michael S. Beates |
Monday, November 14, 2022
God is creating a great tapestry of which we are a part, even our dark threads. We sometimes have doubts and confusion about this divine tapestry because, even though the Artist knows, sees, and continues to create the intricate design woven on the upper side, we see the tangled lower side with dangling threads and only a faint image of the beauty to come. So we hope in Christ. We cling to the promises of God that nothing is wasted—even our brokenness and sorrow will be used for good.
 
I write these words on a lovely Friday afternoon in late September—the same week we Floridians experienced a rather tortuous Wednesday and Thursday as Hurricane Ian blew through town. It’s a beautiful day today, but earlier this week, we watched in horror as homes were swept into the surf or water rose and rose into homes bringing damage and destruction. So, naturally, the question rises in our minds, “Where is God when destruction seems to reign unabated?” Where is God when the doctor says, “It’s cancer and it’s serious”?  “Where is God when the darkness seems never to let up?”
Seeking to answer such questions falls under the broad category of theodicy, which is defined as “a vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.” It’s an age-old problem we all face as people living in a fallen world. We all know that, again and again, life is unjust: the best person too often does not get the job or the credit; the wrong person bears the blame and punishment; sickness and loss come unexpectedly and leave us crying, “Why, O God? How long will this go on?”
The classical construction of the argument goes something like this: Since evil and suffering exist, either God is good but not sovereign (otherwise he would intervene and right the wrongs), or he is sovereign but not good and does not care (since evil continues to ravage the earth). But the Scriptures affirm a tertium quid, a third way: God is both good and sovereign. So the real question is, “What is God seeking to do with us through the darkness of pain, despair, and loss?” This is the essence of the book of Job, which is considered a biblical theodicy seeking to establish that God is righteous and good even in the midst of evil in this life. Marilynne Robinson put it well in her book Gilead when the lead character, John Ames, says, “Strange are the uses of adversity” (Gilead, p. 95). Indeed, sadly, adversity, loss, and pain are the ways we seem to learn the most precious lessons. I told our graduating seniors at commencement last May that in all likelihood, they would learn nothing of lasting value from comfort and pleasure. Rather, the deepest lessons in life come through the hardships. 
I have often said that Romans 8:28 is frequently quoted yet little believed by God’s people: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” This reminds us that all things work for good—not for all people, but for those who love God and are called by him as his children.
But let’s be honest: Not all things are good. Heartbreak, loss, disabling conditions, crime, tornados, death—these are all ultimately products of the Fall and sin. Romans 8:22 also says that the whole creation groans “together with the pains of childbirth.” But our God is a Sovereign who takes our sin and our brokenness and turns it, in his providential wisdom and timing, into his blessings for his people.
But let’s also be clear: Sometimes bad things happen, and it just gets worse. For those who are outside of God’s redemptive promises, bad things can happen and despair leads to hopelessness.
But biblical hope is another reality altogether. The letter to the Hebrews calls hope an anchor for the soul. And when the storms of life threaten to break up the ship, you need an anchor that holds: the promise of redemption—body and soul. When all things are not good in this life, we know that in Christ all things will be perfect in the next.
Tolkien wrote that joy and sorrow are very close to each other. “The Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story — and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love” (Letters, p. 100).
In another essay, Tolkien said sorrow “is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium [Good News!], giving a fleeting glimpse of joy, joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief” (Tree and Leaf). And Paul said the same thing two thousand years earlier: saints can live “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). In the lives of Christians, both realities are often experienced at the same time.
At The Geneva School in our upper school chapel, we recently heard from Dr. Wesley Baldwin (pastor at Aloma Church in Winter Park and dad of several Geneva students). Speaking about the life of Joseph, he said one of the lessons we learn from Joseph is that we can trust God despite whatever is happening around us, even if those things are bad. We know this is true. “Material things are so vulnerable to the humiliation of decay” (again from Robinson’s Gilead, p. 100). 
But the Good News of Christian faith is that Jesus came to redeem our suffering through his suffering. And because he died and rose from the dead, we have the hope of a time when there will be no more death, or mourning; no more tears, or sorrow, or pain (Rev. 21:4).
Our friend Joni Eareckson Tada—who survived a diving accident in 1967 and has lived as a quadriplegic for fifty-five years—famously and wisely says, “Sometimes God uses what he hates to accomplish what he loves.” Linger over that. Let it settle in for a moment. This is a different facet, a new angle, on Romans 8:28. While not all things are good, God is so gracious that he promises to use even our broken lives for much greater purposes such as to make us like Christ and to exalt his glory.
God is creating a great tapestry of which we are a part, even our dark threads. We sometimes have doubts and confusion about this divine tapestry because, even though the Artist knows, sees, and continues to create the intricate design woven on the upper side, we see the tangled lower side with dangling threads and only a faint image of the beauty to come. So we hope in Christ. We cling to the promises of God that nothing is wasted—even our brokenness and sorrow will be used for good. So we take heart.
Mike Beates is a teaching elder in the PCA, serving out-of-bounds as chaplain at The Geneva School in Casselberry, Fla. This article was written for The Geneva Courier, published in the Fall ’22 edition.
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Not only do public school administrators demand that educators keep key, life-changing information about children from their parents—they’ll fire teachers who refuse to lie. 

(LifeSiteNews—Over the past several months, we’ve published several stories in this space on the common public-school practice of hiding information about children going through gender transition from parents. This practice of secrecy is standard across Canada’s public school system and much of the UK system; the New York Times published a journalistic essay admitting that this has become common across the United States, as well.  
The view of the transgender movement—that children need to be protected from their parents by ideologues posing as educators who assist them in changing their gender—has become the de facto regime in many countries.
In previous reporting, we’ve looked at the way these policies have impacted children and parents and examined how teachers participate in and facilitate the indoctrination of their students. A recent story, however, highlights the reality that teachers who may not want to participate in these policies also face great risks. In fact, California teacher Jessica Tapia, who has been a tenured physical education teacher at the Jurupa Valley High School for more than six years, has recently come under fire from students and staff over her views on gender ideology.  
Tapia is a Christian and has made posts on social media about gender ideology in the past. Students combed through her posts and sent them to school administrators claiming that they constituted “unsafe conduct,” earning Tapia a warning from the district.
According to media reports, students who opposed her views on gender ideology launched a coordinated campaign and began monitoring her online statements and occasionally commenting. She was permitted to return to work after her first warning, but the reprieve did not last long.  
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There are many who seek to know only or mainly so that they would know, and make others know that they know. In religion they are all notion without motion, having a head full of light and a heart void of all life. They talk all their religion and do not walk it. Their knowledge aggravates their guilt and heightens their damnation.

We all need to be instructed in the truths of the gospel, because that is the way that we grow spiritually. But both preachers and hearers can be busy around the truth without really getting to the heart of the truth. John Carstares was a ministerial colleague of James Durham and wrote an extended endorsement of Durham’s book, The Great Gain of Contenting Godliness. Carstares picks up on Durham’s theme of “exercising yourself unto godliness” and points out that there are various ways in which we can be active and energetic – full of zeal – but it’s misdirected even though we have flickers and flashes of truth in our view. In the following updated extract, Carstares picks out some ways in which – whether as preachers or hearers – people miss the point and truth and godliness slip away from them.
We should exercise ourselves to godliness knowingly and solidly, having a right understanding of its nature, and a thorough grasp of what it consists of, so that we do not make a mistake about it, as many do who claim to have it, to the great harm of their souls, if not their utter ruin.
There is a “zeal that is not according to knowledge,” and zeal about what is not good (Romans 10:2). Then the more zealous and exercised someone is, and the faster they run, the further they go wrong and out of the way. The greatest zealots in unwarrantable things readily become the most dangerous. “My son,” said dying David to Solomon, “know thou the God of thy fathers,” while to Israel he said, “Keep and seek for the commandments of the Lord your God.” Remarkable words, keep and seek, plainly implying that there can be no keeping of God’s commandments without seeking to know and understand them well. Little knowledge of God, of the nature of godliness, and of the principles of religion, with this wrong kind of zeal, have produced much damage to the gospel, and brought it under great contempt.
Since it is those, and only those, who keep His commandments that have a good understanding (Psalm 111:10), we should by all means strive to have our practice marching side by side with our light, and not to have any of our light detained in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18), made a prisoner under a guard of corruptions to keep it from shining out and influencing our practice.
Seeking Knowledge for Its Own Sake
There are many who seek to know only or mainly so that they would know, and make others know that they know. In religion they are all notion without motion, having a head full of light and a heart void of all life. They talk all their religion and do not walk it. Their knowledge aggravates their guilt and heightens their damnation.
Avoiding Knowledge of the Most Important Things
There are some on the other hand who become weary and almost sick of things that are preached or written with the aim of familiarising them with the form of sound words and the principles of religion. They would prefer only and always to have something spoken to some case of conscience, or some doubt or some spiritual exercise.
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