Posted on August 11, 2025
 

Last January, when American Airlines flight 5342, on final approach to National airport in Washington, D.C. collided with and an Army Blackhawk helicopter and 67 lives were lost, my wife, Terry, on a business trip, was sitting in a hotel room in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I’d dropped her off at the airport that morning and, as I drove away, I prayed as I always do, Lord Jesus, please get Terry where she’s going and back home again safely, and keep her safe while she’s gone. And each time, Jesus has.

I’ve spent the past two weeks haunted by how many husbands and wives and partners, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters prayed that their loved one on that American flight and in the helicopter would get where they were going safely. And they didn’t.

I don’t understand. People will ask where God was that night. I know where God was: with each of those pilots, each of those passengers, whether they prayed to God or even believed in God. But because God was there, what do we do with the fact that what happened still happened? I know that nothing happens outside the grace of God yet those two aircraft came together at precisely the same time in precisely the same place, and 67 human beings were killed. Where’s the grace in that?

As a pastor, for all the time I spend parsing church doctrine and theological argument, I know there is really only one question that matters, the one human beings have been asking as long as there has been human beings: why does a loving God permit suffering? It’s the only question that matters because it’s the only question every single one of us at some point in our lives will have to confront. And there is no answer…at least, no answer that will provide anyone any comfort. As a result, I’ve felt for a long time that the most pastoral response to the why of suffering was no response at all. If, in the face of suffering, words are hollow, then silence, a ministry of presence, of simply being with someone, seemed the most compassionate thing to do.

Yet that no longer seems good enough. There’s always been plenty of death and suffering simply as a consequence of living. The promise of life always includes the promise of death. No human being lives forever. Death will come for each of us, often because of nothing more than our bodies just giving out. Long lives lived well, and then we die.

But what of death not after a long life lived well? What of death because of one human being’s narcissistic pursuit of power, deciding to wage war on people in the name of expanding empire and influence? What of death because one people, convinced of their superiority, systematically eliminate another people? What of death because one person walks through a grocery store or school, randomly shooting whomever they see?

There are those (and I am often among them) who argue that the real question isn’t why does God permit suffering but why do human beings permit suffering? Why do we not more often act proactively to prevent or lessen the impact of suffering?

But I know that argument doesn’t let God off the hook. An omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful God could intervene, preventing with one blink of the Divine eye the war, the genocide, the random shooting before it even happens. How do we know God doesn’t do that? many will say in response. Who knows how many wars, genocides, and mass shootings, how many mid-air collisions God hasprevented? Yet that only raises another question: why did God prevent this war but not that one, thisgenocide but not that one, this mass shooting but not thatone?

So where does this leave us?

In Psalm 73, the Psalmist has become embittered because he cannot find an answer to his question about suffering and a loving God. He realizes that in the absence of the answer he wants, he has a choice. He can continue living embittered and angry, rejecting God because, when all was said and done, God was not being God in ways he could always understand. Or, he could live with God, knowing God’s providence and love is not contingent on complete understanding of who God is or what God does. As Norman McLean says in his novel A River Runs Through It, it is possible to love completely without complete understanding.

I have come to understand in a new way that the Psalmists’ choice is one we all must make. It starts with accepting the fact that until Jesus himself returns, there will always be suffering and death that we cannot explain, let alone square with the reality of a loving God. In the face of this truth we can choose, as many do, to live embittered and angry, railing against the injustice of it all. We can focus on the unjust and inexplicable so much that we no longer see what’s right and beautiful and loving.

I, for one, cannot live that way, not in spite of the fact that I cannot square suffering with a loving God but because I cannot square suffering with a loving God. This is what I’ve come to understand anew about why all the theological and pastoral attempts to explain suffering are no longer good enough. I have come to believe that it is precisely because we can’tanswer the question of why a loving God permits suffering that I am obligated to live a life of renewed dedication to loving as unconditionally as I possibly can. Indeed, silence and bitterness both seem to me to be a betrayal of what, as a Jesus-follower, I’m called to do. I’m not called to completely understand God. After all, a finite mind struggling to understand an infinite Creator is, by definition, impossible. I’m called to love God completely without complete understanding because, in the end, that is what faith is. Anything less from me is a betrayal of the gift of life I still possess.

I have to believe that if they could, each of the 67 people who lost their lives the instant two aircraft collided would tell us, yes, be angry at suffering and injustice, be frustrated that you cannot fully understand God, but don’t let that be the story of your life. Tell people you love them, hold on to one another, be accepting and compassionate because life is a gift but a fragile one. Embrace it every moment as if it was your last because the day will come, maybe when you least expect it, when a moment will be your last. Love completely, not in spite of but because you will never completely understand.