No suffering for the chosen few? I don’t think so!
The circles I was in a few years back were resonating with the presumption that God protects those people who are worthy, or who are "working for the kingdom" from danger or discomfort. I’m not sure where that idea comes from, but there are references in the books of wisdom that say things like "…I was young, now I am old, but I have never seen a righteous man go hungry, or his children begging for bread." It looks like the "wise teacher" who wrote that bit hadn’t travelled much. The band Daniel Amos did a tongue-in-cheek song about this concept in Angels tuck you in penning the line "there is no suffering for the chosen few."
Fast forward a bit to when I was in Papua New Guinea. We had been warned not to go into the bush alone, yet one of the girls insisted she was going to walk to town by herself, and remarked as she left "God is bigger than any of the stilman (bandits) between me and town." The comment was made that God was probably bigger than a mosquito too, but that hadn’t stopped Craig getting malaria when he discontinued his dose of quinine tablets. Contrast that attitude with that of a lady I once knew who as a child would pray every night that God would stop daddy coming into her room and raping her again. An earnest request of an innocent child, which often went ungranted.
I don’t think we should expect to be spared any discomfort, pain, torment, or suffering because of any ideals or calling we believe we have. That level of justice is either sadly misdirected away from those who really deserve it, or simply does not occur.
