The Placebo of Assurance
Suffering is a part of all life. Suffering as a Christian is a privilege, serving as a form of discipline from our loving Father. The first lie in the garden was that “God is a capricious God who only gave you this law because he likes to torture his creation.” But it wasn’t true, and the act of God’s arrogant creature was a declaration that he was not worthy of being believed. The fundamental problem of man is that of disbelief: we do not believe God is good and so we do not do what he commands. This is true even for Christians. The temptation to doubt God doesn’t go away at the moment of our justification. When we suffer we want to know why. Was it something I did that God is disciplining me for? Is it to prepare me for some future faithfulness? Am I a false convert, fooling myself into believing that Christ died for me while remaining under the wrath of God? Was it just some random injustice by some evil force? Maybe God really is a capri...