Trust Me and Jump
It was a beautiful morning. Nine-year-old Jimmy was standing on the edge of the roof of his house looking down at his father, Phil.
Phil, a giant of man, stood with his hands outstretched urging little Jimmy to jump into his arms.
“Jump, Jimmy. I’ll catch you. You can trust me. Look how big and strong I am.”
Jimmy’s stomach was in his throat. He was starting to feel dizzy. He inched back from the edge and sat down digging his fingers into the roof. It was such a long way to the ground.
“Come on son, you can do it. I’m right here and I’ll catch you. You know how big and strong I am. I’ll catch you. I’ve done it before. You can trust me.”
Jimmy slid gingerly down the roof and looked over the edge. There he saw his dad’s upraised arms and encouraging look. Maybe I can do it. Maybe I could jump.
“Come on, be a big boy. You can do it. Just jump, Just do it now.”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes, balled up his fists, took in a deep breath, and jumped off the roof. His pulse raced and he felt the funny feeling in the pit of his stomach you feel on a carnival ride. It was exhilarating. He loved it. This was fun!
Jimmy’s eyes opened wide in terror as he saw his father step back and lower his arms. He didn’t even have time to scream. He hit the ground and felt a sharp pain in his right leg. It was like someone stabbed him with a hot poker. It ran through his body and exploded in his brain.
He couldn’t move. All he could do was lay there and cry.
Jimmy couldn’t believe it. His dad didn’t catch him. He let him fall to the ground on purpose. Why? he thought. Why would my dad do this?
“Dad, help me. I can’t move.” He felt so helpless, so alone.
Jimmy saw his dad standing over him, arms crossed, and a sneer on his lips. In a voice as cold as steel he said, “This will teach you a lesson, never trust anyone. Ever.”
Jimmy felt a stab of pain in his heart more searing than the one in his leg as he watched his dad turn around and walk away.
Outrage
How does this story make you feel? Do you feel outraged? Are you shocked that someone could be so cruel? Are you shaking your head in disbelief that a man would do that to his son?
What are some of the thoughts that come to your mind? Call the police. Call Social Services and get that kid taken away? That man should be thrown in prison and the key thrown away. Give me five minutes with the man and he will wish he never treated his son the way he did.
When I heard this story, I couldn’t believe it. Anger flared in my heart. This was not going to teach him a positive lesson. It was going to destroy him. I cannot think of one positive thing that could come from the incident above. It was destructive and harmful and never should have happened.
No one in their right mind would ever think that what the father did was right. Yet many people attribute similar thoughts about our heavenly father when they say that God has given them a disease or caused an accident in order to teach them a lesson.
I’m sure you’ve heard it as many times as I have. Something bad happens in a person’s life and they ask the question, “I wonder what God is trying to teach me?” This question suggests that the bad thing was initiated by God as a teaching tool designed to bring about something good in their life.
The thought process is, I must be doing something wrong for this bad thing to take place in my life. God must be doing this to teach me a lesson and get me back on track.
There is a long list of bad things we could talk about like accidents, losing a job, or the death of a loved one, but our focus today is on the area of false beliefs about sickness. Therefore, we will limit our discussion to the idea of God striking us with some sort of sickness in order to teach us a lesson.
Unthinkable
Can you imagine a loving, caring father giving their child a disease to teach them a lesson? A father comes into the room with a syringe filled with a virulent disease and injects it into his little girl’s arm and says, “I love you and I want to teach you to trust me more.”
Ludicrous! Insane! Ridiculous! Unthinkable!
It reminds me of the horrific Nazi SS murderer, Josef Mengele. He was called the angel of death because of all the experiments and murders he committed at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He would purposefully infect people with diseases to see how what happened to them. He would amputate perfectly good limbs, infect one twin with a disease let him or her die, and then kill the other twin so he could dissect them both for research. He would inject drugs into a person’s heart to see how they would die. The world was outraged.
He was hunted for the rest of his life as a war criminal and murderer. Even though he may have learned many valuable scientific lessons, the world was horrified that he would so heartlessly murder so many innocent people for the benefit of science.
The world boldly declares that the experimentation and murders Mengele committed were horrific and evil. Why do some people think that God will do something similar to His children who He loves?
So the question is, why do people believe that God would give them a sickness, or any other bad thing, to teach them a lesson?
God Disciplines Those He Loves
The classic answer to the question is a wrong interpretation of a passage from the book of Hebrews. In it the author states:
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin; 5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons,
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord Nor faint when you are reproved by Him; 6 For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, And He scourges every son whom He receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. (Hebrews12:3-11)
There are those who wrongly believe that God places sickness upon His people to help teach them a lesson. Sickness is always seen as part of the curse and it is only used as judgment for sin. Sickness is always seen as an enemy, not a teacher of righteousness.
Does God Discipline His Children With Sickness?
So the big question is, “Does God use sickness to discipline His children and teach them a lesson?” No way!
God is not the author of sickness. Sickness is part of the curse that came upon mankind because of his rebellion against God.
In Deuteronomy 28, God speaks to Israel about blessings and curses that can come upon them dependent on their obedience to God. The blessings are definitely the right choice. Everyone would want to experience these fantastic blessings of God. They include:
Being blessed in the city and the country.
Blessings upon your children, animals, and crops, and in whatever you may do.
Prosperity, being the head and not the tail, and being the lender, not the borrower
Protection from enemies
On the other hand, there is the curse. Every aspect of the curse is terrible. It is something that no one would want to experience. They include the very opposite of the things listed above. For our purposes today, we will only look at the sickness considered to be part of the curse. They include:
Consumption, and with fever, and with inflammation, and with fiery heat (v 22)
The boils of Egypt, and with tumors, and with the scab and the itch, from which you cannot be healed (v 27)
Madness, and with blindness, and bewilderment of heart (v 28)
Sore boils, from which you cannot be healed, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head (v 35)
The curse is something we do not want to experience, and we don’t have to because of the incredible gift we receive from Jesus Christ. He became a curse for us so we don’t have to experience the curse in our lives.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal. 3:13-14)
God, the Father, sent Jesus to redeem us from the curse. He hated the destructiveness of sin and sought to end it through the death of His Son. Therefore, simple logic informs us that God would not use the thing He delivered us from as His tool to teach His children a lesson.
When evil comes your way, don’t look to God as its source. It can be the result of sin and disobedience against God, but it is not sourced out of God. Sin always has its own consequences, death. When we rebel against God, we experience the natural consequences of sin.
Sickness is part of the curse. There is not one sickness mentioned in the blessings of God. There are many listed as part of the curse. So sickness is never to be viewed in a positive manner. It is always evil and an enemy of the life God came to provide.
Every sick person I know is seeking to be healed from the disease. They do not see it as a blessing, but as the life-robbing curse that it is. God has never been the source of sickness. It is not from Him. He certainly does not use sickness to discipline the children He loves.
If you are sick, do not embrace the lie that the sickness is there to teach you something. You may learn something through the sickness, but it is NOT a lesson sent by God. It is part of the curse and an enemy to your wellbeing. Treat it as an enemy and press into God for your healing.
P.S. Share with us how this post was helpful for you.
