Some of you are facing what could easily be called an unsolvable problem. (How do I know that? I’m a pastor too.) It’s you, especially, I hope to encourage today. Often the situations with no human answers form the platform on which God does some of His best work.
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This is illustrated beautifully in the life of Job, who is an ongoing example of unsolvable problems. Job’s biography includes a clipboard full of questions about suffering: Is God fair? Is this situation just?
What is a person to learn when going through deep waters of suffering?
Remember the teacher or seminary professor you had who lacked tact? Learning was regularly sacrificed on the altar of fear. You wondered each session if that was the day you’d be singled out and embarrassed through some public put-down.
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Remember the salesman you encountered who lacked tact? Once you found that out (and it usually doesn’t take 60 seconds), you wanted only one thing—to get away!
Remember the boss you worked for who lacked tact? You never knew if he ever understood you or considered you to be a valuable person. And who could forget that tactless physician? You weren’t a human being; you were Case No. 36—a body with a blood pressure, a history of chronic diarrhea, and stones in your gall bladder—“and you need surgery immediately.” All this was spoken in perfect monotone as he stared at a folder stuffed with x-rays, charts, and papers covered with advanced hieroglyphics. Brilliant, capable, experienced, dignified, and respected . . . but no tact.
Ah, that’s bad . . . but you know what’s worse? A tactless pastor.
Back when I was a kid, I got a bellyache that wouldn’t go away. It hurt so badly I couldn’t stand up straight. Or sit down without increasing the pain. Finally, my folks hauled me over to a big house in West Houston where a doctor lived. He had turned the back section of his house into his office and a small clinic. It was a hot, muggy afternoon. I was scared.
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The doc decided I needed a quick exam—but he really felt I was suffering from an attack of appendicitis. He had whispered that under his breath to my mom. I remember the fear that gripped me when I pictured myself having to go to Memorial Hospital, being put to sleep, getting cut on, then enduring those stitches being jerked out.
