Good Fortune?

This quote of 20th century Lutheran theologian Herman Sasse comes from the We Confess Anthology, in the "Jesus Christ is Lord" section. The excerpt comes in the midst of a superb discussion on the theology of the cross. For me, this quote is strangely comforting. I've seen too many friends and relatives suffer, yet even in all these things, God is there. He hides Himself where we may not think to look.

What human wisdom considers good fortune and therefore strives for— health, success, affluence—these things God in His wisdom may see as harmful for a person’s good and so deny them. In God’s judgment sickness, failure, and poverty may be far better. And God’s judgment is not mistaken, even when it contradicts all human reason. There can be no good, as we see things, in someone lying for years in a sickbed with an incurable ailment and then slowly and painfully dying. Yet God may see something very good in such an apparently meaningless fate. 

Hermann Sasse, We Confess Anthology, Trans. Norman Nagel (St. Louis: CPH, 1999) 50-51.

photo credit: The Doctr