"Poison my son for his Good"

"Headed to UNC to poison my son for his good"

This is a tweet from Steve McKinion (@stevemckinion), professor and pastor.  His son, Harrison has leukemia and a nasty form of it.  He tweeted this the other morning when he was on his way to the hospital with his son for yet another round of chemo.  The poison (chemo) will help save Harrison's life.  If he did not take the chemo, he would surely die (apart of course, from a miracle of healing).


Which all got me thinking about God.  We understand that a father would gladly poison his son in order to bring about the good result of life.  This makes sense to us, because we understand it.  However, when it comes to God and his actions, we do not allow space for a Father who would "hurt" his children for their good.  We think that no God in his right mind would do this, when we witness it every day in medicine.  Indeed, if we caught a father denying life-saving poison to his child, we would accuse him of being an unfit father.  When we "catch" God inflicting pain on his childdren, we accuse him of being unloving, unmerciful, and worse. Strange isn't it?

If the book of Job tells us anything (not to mention much of the rest of the Scriptures), it's that we simply do not have enough information or wisdom to pretend to judge God's actions.  He is high and we are not.  He is great and we are not.  He is infinite and we are not.  As my favorite high school teacher (Sue Donaldson) always says, sometimes "we must just trust."

You'll pray for Harrison, won't you?