Adversity and Trust

One of the most difficult challenges we face in our spiritual life is trusting in God’s loving providence when we are hurt by the malice of other humans. It’s one of the most anguishing tests of our spiritual maturity. Trusting God to bring good from evil is in itself not too difficult--unless we are the targets of that evil. Then it becomes considerably more difficult. Almost anyone can fulfill the Bible’s command, “Do not fret because of evil men” (Prv 24:19). Yet that injunction can come to mean little or nothing to someone who has had a loved one murdered, or who has been tortured, robbed, or cheated out of a job. Punishment for evil we must leave to God (who sometimes exercises it partly through civil sanctions like imprisonment).

Learning to trust God when we are victimized requires taking some steps that will predispose us to that trust. Our first step should be to refuse to play God. “Do not take revenge . . . leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written, ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. . . . Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:19, 21, emphasis mine).

Our second step in disposing ourselves to trust in God in situations of human hurt is to obey Jesus’ fourfold command regarding those who hurt us (see Lk 6:27-28): first, love your enemies (with benevolent or agape love, not necessarily liking them, but desiring good for them, such as their repentance and salvation); second, do good to them, (at least by civil courtesy, if not warm kindness); third, call down God’s blessings on them--in Peter’s words, “Repay evil with blessing” (1 Pt 3:9); and finally, pray for them.

If we ignore these four demands Jesus gave us regarding our enemies, we’ll never learn to trust God, because our sin of unforgiveness will distance us from him who said, “Forgive not and you will not be forgiven” (Mt 6:15). If you can’t trust his revelation about dealing with your victimizers, you can’t trust him to make your victimization eventuate in good.

As an example, think of how Joseph’s trust in God when persecuted redounded to saving a nation from starvation. Joseph told his brothers, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good . . . the saving of many lives” (Gn 50:20). To trust God in hurtful situations, we must keep in mind that God does not approve the sin by which we are hurt, but he does permissively will the harm that results from the sin--a harm that in his eyes is a means to draw us closer to him or to bring some other good. “When disaster comes to a city, has not the Lord caused it?” (Am 3:6).

God may permit and sometimes even cause pain through others (without causing the malice itself). Trust enables us to see that pain as if it were caused by a surgeon, using surgical instruments. Mary, at the foot of the cross, saw evil men acting as the instruments of God’s great act of redemption. One of the marvels of the Lord’s ingenuity is his ability to make the evil of humans redound to the good of the victims who submit to his circuitous ways.