“Where Is God?”: Exodus 1 and the Problem of Pain

In Exodus 1, the people of Israel face an unimaginable problem: After enjoying years of favor in Egypt, they live to see the rise of a new pharaoh, who institutes a harsh policy of infanticide to quell the rising Hebrew population. If God is, as we say, the God in charge of history, how do we make sense of such an atrocity? In his sermon “In His Time,” Alistair Begg helps us to acknowledge the tension such a question raises:

Without sidestepping into a great discussion on the nature of suffering: If we do not struggle—if we do not struggle with the moral problem of suffering—it is probably because we have actually given up the notion of believing in a moral universe. You see, if our lives are random, speculative pieces in the vastness of the solar system, then there is no reason for this kind of question. The world is just a random universe. But we know that it isn’t. And that’s why pain is real pain.

You see, when hard providences come to rub up against our experience—when, if you like, the wind and the waves crash on our lives, when it seems that the things that are happening are so random and apparently pointless—then, when we go to Romans 8:28 (“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who [are] called according to his purpose”), for me, that doesn’t… I don’t go to there and go, “Well, there you go. It’s fine. It’s over.” No. Because now we have to wrestle with it.

This is the question: Where? How? Haven’t you, in the midst of your own personal trials, ever wondered once, “Where is God in all of this?” Have you ever found yourself saying, “What possible good can come out of this?” It’s the inevitability of experiences minus explanations.

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