The discussion generated by the question above is complicated enough that I am going to begin with the answer:
Hard Times come from several places, but God is in control no matter the origin. Because we trust God, we should embrace painful experiences and assume God is actively using adversity to help us grow more Christlike and bear more fruit.
Recently someone close to me—let’s call her Innocent Driver—had a minor car accident. She was hit by a driver whom we’ll call Mr. Whiplash. Now, although Mr. Whiplash caused the accident (and initially admitted it), he later sued Ms. Innocent Driver, claiming whiplash and other injuries he had not mentioned at the time. The insurance company also rated Innocent Driver’s car a total loss.
Yet that car was sold at auction, repaired, and the new owner managed to drive for months on all the local tollways because no one had stopped to remove the toll tag from the car that was supposedly a total loss. Ms. Innocent Driver had to deal with not only the hassle of buying a new car but also the hassle of convincing the toll road authority to waive the expensive charges it expected her to pay. Ms. Innocent Driver was getting the run-around from all sides.
Then a driver we’ll call Gentle Grandmother plowed into Innocent Driver, this time totaling Ms. Innocent’s new car. Gentle Grandmother admitted the accident was her fault and was sweet about the whole thing. But after having her second car totaled, Ms. Innocent Driver was rattled, and began to ask herself hard questions about what philosophers call ‘the Problem of Evil.’
“Is it the enemy? Is the enemy attacking me because I started reading my Bible every day? What will happen next, a serious wreck? Will I end up in the hospital or dead?”
Have you ever felt that way? When you suffer a string of bad things do you wonder whether it is the enemy? It could be. It could also be the Lord’s way of keeping you humble or reminding you to live by faith, or any number of things. And there is a third option. Maybe there is no supernatural element. Maybe the devil did not cause it and God did not cause it and you are simply suffering another in the series of bad things that happen because you live in a fallen world. (When you live East of Eden, there are thorns and thistles, Genesis 3:18. It is not paradise.) As Hamlet observed, we all suffer not only the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” but also the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” Life is hard and bad things happen.
But who causes those things?
1 Yes, sometimes the enemy is involved.
This seems most likely when an amazing spiritual victory is on the horizon, such as when an evangelist is preparing to preach the gospel. But many spiritual victories are quiet and hard for us to perceive, such as the seemingly small step of launching a new life-long habit, such as daily Bible reading. That is one small step that can change not only your life, but the lives of the generations that come after you. So yes, sometimes the enemy places stumbling blocks in our path. “Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone whom he may devour,” 1 Peter 5:8. But “resist the devil and he will flee from you” James 4:7.
Resist the devil. Keep reading your Bible. Be strong and he will leave you and try another time, see Luke 4:13.
2 Other times, God will discipline His children.
I love this verse:
“Do not despise the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” Proverbs 3:11-12.
God is making us better. He disciplines us to make us more hopeful, more joyful, more filled with faith. Our struggles make us grow closer to Him. Our struggles make us more like Him. Isn’t that what we want?
3 God also prunes His children—cleaning up the branches that bear the most fruit.
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it will be even bear even more fruit” John 15:1-2.
As Bruce Wilkinson explained in his book, The Secrets of the Vine, most of the pruning in a vineyard involves cutting away the leaves so that more grapes can grow. A grapevine primarily bears fruit in the sunlight. So the gardener (or vinedresser) will cut away most of the leaves so the vine can bear as much fruit as possible. And that is what God wants for our lives. A plant covered in beautiful leaves may be lovely. But lovely green leaves do not help the farmer sell grapes or raisins or juice or jelly or wine. Healthy leaves are attractive, maybe something like an attractive, orderly life with all your ducks in a row. But leaves do nothing for the Kingdom of God. Leaves do not bear fruit. In fact, leaves get in the way of bearing fruit. So God prunes our lives so they will bear more fruit.
4 Finally, in this world you will have trouble.
Jesus said it Himself: “In this world, you will have trouble, but take courage, for I have overcome the world” John 16:33. A few of your problems may be caused by the enemy. A larger portion of your problems may be God’s loving discipline or God’s artistic pruning so you will bear more fruit. But perhaps the largest portion of your struggles in this life may simply be the result of living in a fallen world. Since the day Adam and Eve left the Garden, life has been throwing thorns and thistles in the path of Adam’s Race. Like hazards in golf, trouble is simply par for the course.
But what about the question of Ms. Innocent Driver? Is the enemy attacking her? Can she be certain? And how should she respond?
I think she is rarely going to have certainty. There are times, particularly with the most extreme suffering, when the Holy Spirit may help you understand what is going on, whether it is spiritual warfare, or the Lord’s pruning, or simply another in life’s string of absurdities and frustrations. Sometimes God will give you insight. Often He will not.
So what do you do if you don’t know? You adopt the attitude of Proverbs 3:11-12: “My son, do not despise the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him…”
I read that verse today—again, one of my favorites—and I laughed, thinking but how do I know? How do I know it’s God? If the Lord came to me and said, “Steven, you remember what you did yesterday at 5:02 pm? Well, it’s time for some corporal punishment,” then I would smile and take my licks. I might cry or react to the physical pain, but I would definitely have a great attitude. I would NEVER despise the discipline of the Lord.
But God never makes these announcements. Life just happens. Bad things happen and I don’t know whether it is God or God’s enemy or me reaping what I sowed or just another unlucky circumstance in a fallen world. I may look at my struggles and have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA to what it should be attributed. Did the devil cause this? Did God cause this? Did the devil cause this, but God allowed it in order to achieve His purpose of making me a better person? Or did I cause this? Or did Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man cause this? Who knows?
Seriously! Who knows? Not me. Usually not anyone. Like I said, on rare occasions the Holy Spirit will give you insight. But often we have no idea what force or combination of forces might be behind our afflictions and adversity. But look again at Proverbs 3.
I think the wise position is this: trust God and submit, assuming He has a purpose in everything. Because in all things, He is sovereign. The devil has to ask permission before attacking you, see Job chapters one and two. See also Luke 22:31, in which Jesus reports to Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat.”[1]
The enemy must operate within the limits of the permission God gives him—and within that permission, we can assume some of us, perhaps all of us, will sometimes face spiritual warfare. Yet, because God is sovereign, He remains an active, engaged Father at all times, always using every circumstance for our good (Romans 8:28), whether it originates as a spiritual attack, as God’s loving pruning, or as just another accidental weed or thorn growing up in our imperfect world. In other words, we need not identify the cause of every difficult moment life brings us. Instead, trust God’s sovereign, loving hand in all things. I suggest we lean-in to what we can learn, assuming our loving Father-God is involved with ALL THINGS.[2] No matter the circumstances, may we trust God and “not despise the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when we are reproved by Him, for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives” Proverbs 3:11-12.
Dear God, remind us that You are sovereign. You are always on Your Throne. No matter what adversity we face, may we endure it with hope and faith, keeping our eyes on You, our loving Father. Remind us never to despise the chastening of the Lord, but to submit our lives and circumstances to You. May we trust You with our health, our money, our work, our families, our future, our everything. Thank You for Your love that never fails.
AΩ.
[1] John Piper argues that Satan must ask permission EVERY time he attacks someone. https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-fall-of-satan-and-the-victory-of-christ/excerpts/satan-always-asks-permission#:~:text=Satan%20is%20a%20murderer%20from,He%20has%20not.%20Deuteronomy%2032%3A39%3A
However, the writers at the GotQuestions website argue that the Bible does not expressly say the devil must ask EVERY time. Yet, they too argue that God is sovereign and has clearly placed limits on what the enemy can do to God’s people. Both of these articles are worth reading. https://www.gotquestions.org/Satan-God-permission.html
[2] There are tragedies in life I would never connect with God. The death of a child, for example, was never God’s plan. We are horrified by such things and we should be. Facing such devastation, the heart of God breaks more deeply than ours does because His heart is infinite. God has an infinite well of compassion and grief and grace for the grieving. And His hatred of evil and death is an ever-present energy that never tires. God never grows relaxed about it. There is no zen, no weird mystical peace about death. When Lazarus died and his sisters grieved, “Jesus wept,” (John 11:35) even though He knew He would bring Lazarus back in a few minutes. He wept in the face of death because it was never meant to be this way. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to Him all remain alive” Matthew 22:32. God does not lose people the way we do, but I believe He hates to see us suffer such devastating grief and loss. But God is sovereign, He is wise, and His heart is loving. We must learn to trust His infinite love and mercy even in the unspeakable horrors some of us will face.