“Almighty God, why have you done this to us? Have you no heart, no feelings? Have you no eyes to see with? Have you no ears to hear us with? You are wicked, O Lord, as wicked as a man.”
These are the words of a Jewish man who was watching people die while being driven in a dank, vomit and blood-laden, over-crowded truck from a ghetto in Hungary to Auschwitz. He had entered the extremes of human pain. Though laconic by nature, he could not hold back. He had to speak this anti-psalm.
Most of us have our points when suffering has the power to take us into the anti-psalms. For some—and I have witnessed this—it could be a flat tire or plumbing mishap. For others the line is not crossed until the life of a loved one is in jeopardy. Yet for those like the Apostle Paul, there is no line. No amount of suffering could shake his confidence in God. I fear that my own line is between the flat tire and the loved one in jeopardy.
If we have a line at which faith withers, there is only one question. Do I live for God or does he live for me? There are other questions we could ask such as, do I believe that God loves me? But that does not quite get to the stark, either/or essence of human life. God is in heaven, we are on earth. He is the Creator, I am his creation.
Do I live for him or does he live for me?
