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T Theodicy
"Not too long ago I was babysitting one of our three, 3-year-old grandchildren. In our family, we had twins and a single birth all within 24 hours. We call them Search, Destroy, and Demolition. I was to baby-sit Demolition. As I waved good bye to his parents, he looked perfectly all right. We had a little story out of his favorite book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. I put him to bed and went to sleep.
"In the middle of the night, I felt a little hand, and I turned on the light. I looked at Drew: chicken pox from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. 'Nana,' he said, 'Me's having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Why should some things like this happen to I?'
I thought how like Drew we all are. Why should something like this happen to me? We cannot believe it. As Miss Piggy says, 'Moi? Not moi.' We cannot believe that God would allow something to happen to such nice people like us.
I gave Drew a bath in porridge—oatmeal. It's a wonderful remedy. It takes away the itch. He swam around in this porridge bath, and then I took him out and wrapped his bumpy, little body in a great, big white towel. As I held him against my heart, he just kept saying, 'Hold me, Nana. Hold me, Nana. Hold me, Nana.' I thought of Job as I held my little Job to my heart.
— Jill Briscoe
Source: "In the Father's Arms," Preaching Today, Tape No. 141
"How often we shift the blame to God.
"Early in my ministry I visited a man in the hospital. The doctor had told him he was dying of lung cancer. There was no hope. Now, for twenty years this man had smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. As he lit up another, he said to me, 'I don't know why God is doing this to me. I'm still a young man. I have a wife and kids, much to live for. I just don't know why God would do this.'
"I recall sitting there trying to be 'pastoral' and all the while fighting the urge to say, 'You're so right. It is so unfair that every day for the last twenty years God FORCED you to smoke all those cigarettes!'
"Don't blame God when we reap the consequences of our ignorance, foolishness, and rebellion."
-- Ben Rogers
Source: Ben Rogers, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People." In "Vital Sermons of the Day," Jan/Feb 1984.
Topics/Tags: Blame; Sickness; Consequences of Sin; Theodicy
Browse By Topic T Theodicy