Trusting in the Goodness of God, no matter what…

On July 17, 1981 one of the largest architectural disasters in US history occurred .  1,600 people were attending a ‘tea dance’ in the large lobby and dining area of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, MO.  In a moment of structural failure, two suspension bridges collapsed onto each other under the weight of the people dancing, then crashed into the crowd on the lobby floor.  In the end 114 people were killed and 216 injured.  Later the failure was attributed to short-cuts taken in the construction by the building contractors to make budget.

Barbara Smith, one of our members at Mariners’ Church, lived in the area and knew people both killed in the collapse and rescued from the debris. One of the people rescued was her best friend, Connie.  Connie was trapped under the rubble for almost 15 hours before being rescued.  As Barbara recalled this story to several of us in a Bible study recently, tears welled up in her eyes.

These are Barbara’s words quoted with her permission:

I was pondering the tragedy when God said, “You have questions.”

            So I said, “You are blank right I have questions.”  

He responded, “And you want answers.”

           I replied, “You are blank right I want answers.”

His response was:

“There are no answers. I am with you.”

Although the event happened over 40 years ago, the lesson God taught has stayed with Barbara, and now will stick with me.  We look for answers to seemingly meaningless events, tragedies, and horrible circumstances.  Many times there are no answers.

It wasn’t that those killed had sinned more than those who survive.  Likewise, when someone is diagnosed with a disease and, despite much prayer, succumbs to the sickness, it doesn’t mean they didn’t have enough faith to be healed.

Jesus encountered this false way of thinking about God.  He was teaching and was asked about a tower that fell in Siloam and killed 18 people.   Jesus’ said:

Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? NO, (Luke 13:4)

Another time there was a man blind from birth and the Pharisees asked Jesus:

“Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”

Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents,  John 9:2-3

This was a common notion then, and sometimes is thought to be true today.  If something is wrong in my life, it’s because of some sort of cosmic karma.  I did something to deserve it.

Similarly, God is neither in the business of handing out blessings only and always to those who do good. There is not such thing as karma in Christian thought.

Although there are natural blessings for living a life of obedience to God, as well as  natural consequences for certain actions, God doesn’t keep a list of ‘nice’/‘naughty’ people, like Santa Claus.  “The Universe” doesn’t give what we deserve.  This doesn’t come from Christian thought or the words of Jesus.

Jesus did say in Matt. 5:45

For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Jesus’ answer isn’t intended to be complete or even satisfying.  Much of life, however, is leaning into mystery and trusting that the heart of God is always good towards us.  For those who get frustrated with mystery, it’s understandable.  We want answers.  We want control.  We think being able to predict what causes pain and suffering may allow us to avoid it.  We think if we do good then we deserve good things to happen.

That better reflects a transactional mindset than the actual heart of God. He’s not transactional or vindictive. He’s relational and asks us to TRUST Him.

Sometimes we want to fight against that very simple instruction. It’s as if we forget that we’re not GOD. There’s only one Triune God. When going through a hard time, we can find out that leaning on Him is all we need to get to the other side.

Barbara finished her story by telling us how, at first, she wasn’t satisfied with what she heard from God: “There are no answers. I am with you.”

She said:

“The rest of the story is that I had the effrontery to say [to God in prayer], “That is NOT a good and sufficient answer.”

Then, when I visited Connie in the hospital, she told me “I have been under the rubble, and that IS a good and sufficient answer.”

May the Love of God fill our hearts with the assurance that He IS always with us, even when we find ourselves ‘under the rubble’ too.

Blessings and peace,

Rev. Todd