Worshipping God When Suffering — Zac Poonen

The New Covenant and the Call to Genuine Christianity

What I've discovered through the many years that I've been a Christian, 57 years since I was born again, is that the Christianity that is seen in the world and proclaimed by most churches is completely different from the Christianity in the New Testament.

Now most people don't know that because they don't read the New Testament carefully. And so they imagine that I'm exaggerating or something like that. They're welcome to believe that. But for those of you who are serious to make sure that the one life that God gives you on this earth, you're going to live according to the way God wants man to live.

I desire that greatly. I have only one life, I don't have an opportunity again to live this life. And for me, the teaching of Jesus in the New Testament and the Apostles gives me a clear direction of that, that I can live in such a way that when I come to the end of it and move on into eternity, I have no regret when I look back over my life.

I have a regret over all the foolish things I did in my unconverted days and those times, but we should not have a regret over the way we lived from the time we were converted. Otherwise conversion means nothing.

A lot of people who say they're converted live just like everybody else in the world. They fight and quarrel and pursue the things of the world just like everybody else. And I say, well, their conversion is very superficial.

It's a whitewash. So that's why we speak much in the church about the New Covenant. It's something most churches don't know anything about. Jesus abolished the Old Covenant and made a New Covenant. Those of you who have studied American history, you know that up until 1776, the British ruled the United States.

Then the United States became a free country. Now the question is, how many people in the United States would want to go back under the British rule today? I don't think anybody wants it. So it's surprising that Christians want to live under the Old Covenant, which was abolished years ago.

Not in 1776, but 30 AD. Many years ago it was abolished. On the day of Pentecost, God finished with that Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was only temporary to teach man. God was trying to teach man through the law, you can never come up to my standards no matter how hard you try.

Man could keep 9 out of the 10 commandments, but the 10th commandment which says you must never desire anything in your heart that doesn't belong to you, it's somebody else's. You must not lust. Nobody in the world could keep it.

God says that's my standard. If you can't keep it, you can't enter my kingdom. It's a good thing God abolished that and showed us a way, not just to forgive us, forgiveness was there in the Old Covenant too, but to help us to be free so that we can keep that 10th commandment, that we don't desire anything but God in our hearts.

If you haven't come there, my brother, sister, pursue it. This is the place God is seeking to bring us to, where we desire nothing but God in our hearts, and when we desire Him, I'll tell you something, when you have nothing left but God, you'll find that God is more than enough, because He takes care of you.

He won't let you starve. No one who's ever trusted God has been a homeless person, never in the history of humanity. Nobody who's ever trusted God has had to starve or seen his children starve. God provides these earthly things, but He says, I want you to recognize that your spiritual life relationship with me is priority.

Patience, Suffering, and the Example of Job

So today I want to share something, an aspect of the New Covenant which is not much spoken of. Turn with me to James chapter 5. James chapter 5, and I want to read from verse 7 to 11. Be patient therefore, my brothers, until the coming of the Lord.

And the example he uses is, the farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until he gets the early and latter rain. When a farmer sows his seed, he doesn't expect a crop overnight.

No. He is willing to wait, and wait patiently many months, and then he gets a harvest. And so here it says here, that once we have sowed the seed of righteousness and kindness and goodness and lived a sacrificial life, seeking to please God and blessing other people, you may not get the results immediately.

Which farmer gets the result in one week, two weeks? He's willing to wait, and he says, you must wait, how long? Until the coming back of Jesus Christ to earth. When he comes back, you'll get such a harvest, that you'll be glad you waited, and that you'll be glad that you sowed the right seeds, and poured water on your crops, and did not bother about people criticizing you or any such thing.

Just loved them and blessed them in return. What a harvest you'll get. So be patient. Verse 8, and strengthen your hearts, because the coming of the Lord is at hand. Is at hand means it'll come. You know, it says 1 ,000 years is like one day.

So according to that, God's calculation, it's just been two days since Jesus went up to heaven. Just two days. He's coming back. So do not complain, brethren, against one another. Don't waste your time criticizing others, judging others, so that way you won't get a good harvest.

Because the one who is to judge people is coming. He will take care of all judgment. You don't have to judge anybody. You think something's wrong with somebody, leave it to the judge to take care of that.

He'll do it. He's coming. To me, it's been a great blessing, because my unconverted days, you know how I was just like anybody else, judging everybody, criticizing, finding fault. We're all experts at finding fault with everybody else.

Never finding much fault in ourselves. But as I've come closer to God, I'll tell you something. I have discovered more fault in myself than in other people. Because when you come close to God, the light shines so brightly on yourself, you see things that you never saw before.

And the light is shining so brightly, you know how when you look at the sun, your light eyes are blinded. It's like that when you look at God, your eyes are blinded, that you can't see the faults of people around you.

It's a wonderful way to live, because you see so much in yourself that needs to be cleansed away before Christ comes. I hope you're living that life. Christ is coming soon. All the evil that we see around in the world is exactly as Christ predicted, would precede the coming of the Lord.

Jesus said it was like the birth pains that a woman goes through before the baby is delivered. But the woman looks forward to the baby at the end of the birth pains and all the suffering going on in the world today is the birth pains before the coming of Christ.

And then he says, as an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. The Old Testament examples of every prophet in the Old Testament, you know, suffered at the hands of other people who misunderstood them, criticized them.

In the history of God's dealings with man, God has sent his servants and every true servant of his has been maligned, criticized, misunderstood, declared a heretic or a false teacher, etc. One day God will reveal that those were my true servants.

They endured it patiently. And he says, take an example from these prophets. And then he takes one example from the Old Testament. He says, Job, verse 11, we count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job in the Old Testament and seen the outcome of the Lord's dealings, that even though Job went through a very painful time, the outcome, he was tremendously blessed at the end.

The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. And he's saying that in relation to the coming of the Lord, God may allow you also to go through a lot of suffering and trial, but in the end, when he comes, you'll see what a harvest you get.

So he says, be patient for that. You may not see the result in your earthly lifetime. Most of the prophets did not. They were killed, persecuted. Most of the apostles were all beheaded and killed. They did not see the result in their lifetime.

But boy, what a reward awaits them. So if you turn to the book of Job, which is quoted here, I just want to share a few things from there. If you heard me earlier, you've heard me say that Job is the first book of the 66 books of the Bible that God wrote through man.

Not Genesis. Genesis is written, put in the first of the Bible because it describes creation. But it was written 500 years after Job by Moses. So Job is the first book. When God decided to write a book for man, the Bible, and he was going to write 66 books, the first one he wrote was Job.

So it's creation. The description of creation came 500 years later. It's almost as though God said, description of creation can wait. It's not so important. I want to speak to man about a man of God. So the first book that God wrote in the Bible was not about the creation of the earth.

It was about a man. A man whom God appreciated. A man whom God could point out to Satan and say, have you all over the earth, Satan, have you seen a man like this? Remember that, my brothers and sisters, that when God wrote his first book, he was revealing his heart that the greatest thing he wants to see on earth today is a man or a woman whom he can point out to the devil and say, okay, Satan, there are a lot of hypocrites on the earth.

A lot of people who call themselves Christians who are first-rate hypocrites, but have you seen this one? One in a million, have you seen this one? Have you seen that one? This man, that woman? A lot of churches teach a lot of wrong things and are more after your money than interested in blessing your soul, but have you seen this church?

Not a mega church, but this small one here. That's the type of person I want to be. That's the type of church I want to build. One whom the Lord can point out to Satan and say, this one is different. That's what God said about Job.

There were a lot of hypocrites in Job's day, just like there's been in the history of man. Wherever there's religion, there are hypocrites, without a doubt, and Christianity's got plenty of them. Many counterfeits because the original is so valuable.

You know, people make counterfeits only of valuable things like gold and diamonds. So if Christianity is valuable, you can be pretty sure there are a lot of counterfeits. But in Job's day, there were a lot of people who were religious, but not genuine.

But here was one man and the Lord said to Satan, verse 8, have you considered my servant Job? There's no one like him on the face of the earth, a blameless upright man fearing God and turning away from evil.

What I learned from the first book of the Bible is, it's not what man thinks of you that's important. If God can give you a certificate to the devil, you see, we know only about 10 of each other's life.

You know nothing about my private life. You don't know how I speak to my wife at home every day. You don't know. You can imagine that I'm very holy. You don't know what my attitude to money is. You don't know whether I'm righteous and money matters.

You don't know whether I pay my taxes. You don't know anything about my private life. You see me standing up here and even one another who we meet every Sunday, we know very little about each other. We know about 10 of the most.

90 of our life is hidden, private. No human being knows it, but the devil knows it. He sees all the things that you do in private. The way you speak to others, etc. Your handling money matters, etc.

And he's called an accuser. He's called the accuser of believers particularly. So the purpose which Satan is watching is to accuse people who take the name of Christ and say, God, this guy takes your name.

Look how he behaves. Look how he's speaking to his wife. Look how she speaks to her husband. This guy is supposed to be a Christian. Look how he handles money. And look how he pretends to be so holy in the church and he's a downright hypocrite the rest of his life.

And what does God say? God's not going to tell a lie. He accepts it. And he says, but Satan, have you seen this one? And have you seen that one? That, if you're really concerned about the glory of God's name, that's the type of person you should long to be.

That among all the hypocrites and deceivers and people who take advantage of the name of Christ on earth, that God can point out to a few, very few. Jesus said, the way to life is so narrow, very few will find it.

Do you want to be one among them? I had a great longing for many years in my life, ever since I read this verse. I said, Lord, I want to be one of those whom you can point out to the devil. I'm not bothered what people think about me or say about me.

It's worthless. They're dust. You take breath out of their body, just breath, and they become dust. Why should I worry about their opinion? The one who created me, his opinion about me is much more important.

Can you point me out to Satan? I believe that's a question you should all ask yourself. If you are serious about the Christian life, ask yourself this question. Job was one. And it was, you know, Job was a very wealthy man, by the way.

There's nothing wrong in being wealthy. If God decides to give you that. Jesus was not wealthy. He was poor. So that's also okay. Many of the prophets were poor. Abraham was a prophet. He was very wealthy.

And Job was very wealthy. He was one of the richest men on earth. Which teaches us that you can be rich and spiritual, and you can be rich and a hypocrite, or you can be poor and spiritual, and be poor and a hypocrite.

You can be rich and love money, and you can be poor and love money too. Every beggar in the world loves money. Every homeless man loves money. It's not only rich people who love money. And you can be rich and be free from the love of money, and you can be poor and free from the love of money.

Our external circumstances don't determine our inner attitudes. No. So, Job was a very wealthy man, because he had such a lot of, in those days, wealth was determined by the number of cattle you had. There was three sheep, camels, yokel box, and hundreds and hundreds of them.

He was an extremely wealthy man. But there was something about Job. He feared God, it says. God himself said that there's a man like him who fears me, and turns away from evil. Now remember, he lived at a time when there was no Bible, no Bible.

He didn't know anything about the coming of Jesus Christ, which would be 2 ,000 years later. He lived about 4 ,000 years ago, Job. And he had no fellowship. He was about one lonely man on earth, living for God, in the midst of a bunch of hypocrites.

We have a lot of fellowship, but don't realize how much that blesses us. But Job was a lonely man. But in spite of all that, I want to tell you about something, how he lived, which tells us why God said he feared God.

Turn with me to Job 31. Job 31, Job tells us something about his inner life. It's an amazing verse. I wonder how many men you will find on earth today like that. You know what Job says? I made a covenant with my eyes that I will not gaze at a woman to lust after.

Can you find any men like that? Today, with the Bible, with the knowledge of Jesus Christ, people talk about speaking in tongues, wholeness of the Holy Spirit. All these fantastic things. People speak so many meetings, so many fellowship meetings, so many conferences, and deeper life conferences, and all of that.

At the end of it all, show me men who can say, I made a covenant with my eyes that I will never lust after a woman. Job had a wife, and he was satisfied with her. And Job was an old man. His children were grown up and had their own homes, so Job's wife was an old lady.

But she was beautiful in his eyes, even though she was an old lady. And she said, do you think old men are not tempted to lust after younger girls? Where is the man who can say, I made a covenant with my eyes, I will not lust after a woman.

And he says something else. See, that's one of our biggest temptations. And the other thing he says is in verse 24. If I put my confidence in gold or in money, and my trust in money, if I have gloated because my wealth was so great, or because by my hard working hands I earned so much money or my clever brain, then I deserve to be punished.

That's just two areas I'm talking about. Sex and money. This guy was pure. Without a Bible, without fellowship, without constant exhortation, without any internet to listen to messages. We have so much.

How did he come to this life? He had one quality, which many Christians don't have. He reverenced God. He feared God. There are two types of fear of God, you know, I've mentioned that. One is the fear that God may hurt me.

I don't have that fear. The other is the fear that I may hurt God. I want that fear. That's the right type of fear to have. Not that God may hurt me, but I may hurt God. What type of fear do you want your children to have when they grow up?

The fear that my dad may hurt me, or the fear that I may hurt my dad. That's the type of fear God wants. He's a father. He wants us to be his children. That's the type of fear Job had. He didn't know God is a father like we know.

He knew God is God. But he didn't want to hurt him. If he had wealth, he knew God gave it to him, and he was thankful for it. And for such a good God who had blessed him so much. He blessed him with ten healthy children, and wealth, and comfort, and everything.

He said, how can I hurt this God who has done so much for me? I don't want to hurt him. And how did he know that without a Bible, without any commandment, you shall not commit adultery, or the New Testament standard, don't lust after a woman.

How did this man know that lusting after a woman was wrong? When I'm sure everybody else in the world was doing it. That's what the fear of God does, you know. When you know God, He makes you sensitive in your conscience to things that are wrong, which other people around you don't think is wrong.

Most people live by the standards of others around them. If they say it's wrong, it's wrong for me. If they think it's not wrong, it's okay. But the man who fears God and reverences God, his conscience tells him things which other people don't even hear.

And it doesn't matter if nobody in the world is following it. He's determined to follow that. That's the blessed man. And we read in James, think of Job. It says, consider Job, my brethren. It's a New Testament commandment in James chapter 5.

So that's why I want to consider Job. The Holy Spirit says, consider Job. Consider how he had not even 1 of what you have as Christians and see how he lived. So don't make an excuse saying, my flesh is weak, my lusts are strong.

What about him? He was also a child of Adam, just like us. It's a lie that we cannot overcome these things, especially if we seek the power of the Holy Spirit. We can. You know how people say, I can't give up smoking, I'm so addicted to it, till one day the doctor says, one more cigarette and you'll die in a few days.

He suddenly stops. How did he suddenly get strength to overcome smoking? Because he feared death. It's amazing what all we'll do if we fear death. If you've got diabetes, however much you like ice cream, you'll stop it.

We fear love life so much that we will give up many things. We think we don't have the strength to give it up, but we have. How much more we can have if we seek for the power of the Holy Spirit? There is no commandment that God has given in Scripture which cannot be obeyed.

I'm convinced about that. If you're not convinced about it, you'll never come there. When the Bible says, give thanks in everything, because God controls everything to make it work for your good, it's possible.

No need to complain or murmur if you believe that God is making that evil that somebody did to you work for your good. So every commandment can be obeyed, if we seek for it. It's the lie of the devil who keeps telling us, no, no, no, you can't keep it, etc.

So Job is a great example for me because he had so little and he lived such a pure life. But I want to go on from that, that this wonderful man who was the greatest man of God on earth at that time, went through such unimaginable suffering that, I mean, people who read it say, this can't be true.

They immediately say, no, this is a fancy story. A fancy story, how does the Holy Spirit mention it in the book of James? It's not a parable. It was a real man, because people can't believe that a real man could have suffered so much that in one day, through an accident and calamity, he lost all his property and all his children.

All his wealth was burnt up, some enemies came, and we read in Job 1 in verse 17, and made a raid and took them and slew the servants and took away all his wealth, all his cattle. Another fellow came and said, your children were all eating and drinking in their oldest brother's house, verse 18, and a great wind, a storm, a tornado came, and the house fell upon these young people and every one of them died.

Ten children, all died, because they were all having a feast in the house and the tornado struck it and everybody died. And some Chaldeans came and raided and took away all his cattle. And he gets all that news within a few seconds of each other.

Two servants come and say, Job, all your wealth is gone. And the other fellow comes later and says, all your children are gone. And it says in Job 1, verse 20, Job arose, he tore his robe, that means he wept.

Naturally, you'll weep when you lost your children. There's nothing wrong in weeping. Sorrow is not a sin. Your loved one dies, you'll naturally weep. But along with weeping, he did something else. He bowed his head, fell down and worshipped God.

That's the first person we read of in Scripture who worshipped God, Job. Abraham did it later. But what I see there about worship is this, his attitude. You know, we think of worship as singing songs and all churches call Sunday morning praise and worship.

It is not praise and worship. It's praise and thanksgiving. Worship is something in an altogether different category. There are four steps in our relationship with God. First is prayer, asking God. Second is thanksgiving, thanking God for what He's done.

Third is praise, which is not thanking God, but praising Him for who He is, even if He's done nothing for me. And fourth is worship, which is the highest. Worship is not necessarily with words. It can be in silence.

It's more an attitude of the heart where I bow down. You know, people who worship God always bow down. And that is a significant saying, God, I accept your will for my life, whatever it is. If you decide to give me something, I bow and I worship you.

I'm sure Job worshipped when he got so much, his children and his property. And he bowed down and worshipped when God took them away. That's a little more difficult. It's easy to bow down and worship when God gives you lovely children and gives you a good job and a good house and money.

It's quite another thing to bow and worship God when He takes it away. The worshipper, true worshipper, does both. Just as quickly and just as readily. Otherwise, we're not a worshipper. You know, if I can only thank God when God gives me things, I'm like anybody else in the world.

But I'm different if I can bow and worship God when He takes it away. What I thought was mine. A worshipper says nothing is mine. And that's what Job says here in verse 21. When I came from my mother's womb, what did I have?

How much money did I have? I didn't even have a stitch of clothing on my body when I came. I came out naked. And one day, I will leave this earth and they'll bury me. And there'll be no wallet in my pocket when I'm buried.

I won't be able to take my money with me. I won't be able to take my children. I came naked. I'll go naked. And in the short period I'm on earth, God gives me things that I can enjoy, that I can use for His glory, that I can be a witness for Him.

I will accept whatever He sends. That's a worshipper for whom God is more important than everything. And, you know, God later on blessed Job and gave him back his wealth and children. He had 10 children again and property.

And He says in all these things, verse 22, He did not sin. He did not blame God. Whenever a man blames God, he sins. Why did God allow this to me? That's a sin. It's almost saying this God who runs the universe is stupid.

He doesn't know what He's doing. That's what He's saying when He blames God. Job didn't. He could say, I'm stupid. I don't understand why it's happening. That's okay, because I don't have the wisdom of God.

You know, God's wisdom is so great. I'll tell you, even though I've known Jesus for 57 years, there are many, many things I do not know of God's ways. I know a lot more than I did 57 years ago. It's like in the 12th grade, you know a lot more than you were in the kindergarten.

But I'm still growing. A lot more about God I don't know, because my mind is limited. It's like a cup. God's wisdom is like an ocean. Is it surprising that the ocean doesn't fit into my cup? But my cup keeps expanding.

That's the wonderful thing. As I get to know God, it becomes a little bigger. It becomes like a bucket. But even the bucket can't contain the ocean. It becomes a tub, still can't contain the ocean. It's growing, but there's so much of God that we still don't know.

But we can grow. But it's possible for you to start your Christian life as a cup and remain a cup even after 30 years. You don't know any more about God. There are lots of things I understand about God's ways today that I did not know even 10 years ago.

And much more than I knew 50 years ago. Because we are growing. So this is worship. And the other thing I want you to see here is we read there that after that, Satan said, Boy, I couldn't get him. I'm going to prove this guy doesn't fear God.

God, give me one more chance, this time to hit his body. Because Satan says, I know one thing about human beings. They love themselves more than anybody else. They love themselves more than their children.

They love themselves more than their wives and husbands. But when it hits home, then they'll complain. God says, OK, try it. And Satan goes and afflicts Job with a sickness. I don't know whether it was leprosy, because it says he had to go outside the city, and only lepers went outside the city.

And he had to scrape himself and sit there. Imagine all the sores in his body, and this man is the most godly man on earth. Well, you know what he says when he gets all that? His wife complains. How can you hold fast to your integrity, chapter 2, verse 9, when God treats you like this?

And he said to her, you speak like a foolish woman. If we accept good things from God, can't we accept adversity as well? In all this, Job did not sin. And there's something interesting that happened after this, and this is what I want to share here.

The Danger of Judging Those Who Suffer

There were three friends of his, Job 2, verse 11, called Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. They claimed to be friends, and for some time they pretended to be friends. They sat down with him on the ground for seven days, verse 13, and seven nights, and wept with him.

But when you read the rest of the book, from chapter 4 onwards, you find they were not real friends. They criticized him left, right, and center. They claimed to know God, but I have a feeling, reading between the lines, that these three friends were jealous of Job.

You know, if you're a godly man, there can be people who are jealous of you, because your life seems to be so restful and peaceful when their lives are full of turmoil. And listen to this. If you're a godly man, and on top of that, you have quite a bit of wealth, boy, then the jealousy increases like anything.

I mean, if you were godly, and you were living in a little hut or a shack, they'd be happy. Okay, I'm better off than him. The guy may be godly. But if you're godly, and you're much better off financially than those guys, then the jealousy becomes intense.

How in the world can he be godly? And he's got wealth too. And God allows certain circumstances in the life of his servants that exposes the evil in others. It's one of the ways you see in Scripture. You know, the Pharisees had a lot of evil in them.

But you read in the Gospels that sometimes it got exposed. The people coming to the presence of Jesus got exposed. For example, they had all this bitterness against a woman caught in adultery. Now, there was a law in the Old Testament that a woman caught in adultery must be punished.

And they wanted to punish her, and they brought her to Jesus. And remember, Jesus from heaven gave those laws to Moses in the Old Testament, so he could have kept it. But he said, whoever is without sin among you, throw the first stone at this woman.

Go ahead. Go ahead. You want a stoner? The one without sin can throw the first stone. And that's all Jesus said and kept quiet. And you know what it says there in John chapter 8? The oldest Pharisee walked away first.

And one by one by one they all left. Why didn't at least one of them pretend that he had no sin and take the stone? Because I know what would have happened. They were scared of Jesus. They were afraid that Jesus would make a big list of all their sins publicly and expose them.

They said, we better not. We're scared of that. We better go away quietly. And they went away. See, the evil in their heart got exposed when they came into the presence of Jesus. And that's sometimes the way God uses, you know.

God allows some suffering to come to a godly man. Even today, just like Joe. And immediately there are people who are Christians who say, ah, that's because there must have been some secret sin in his life.

They're a little delighted that that suffering came, which didn't come to them. And they find some delight in trying to show. They were always jealous of this person who was far more spiritual than them.

And they're so delighted now that something has happened to that person or to his family that didn't happen to them. And they gloat in that and say, ah, there must be some secret sin in his life. And thereby these hypocrites are exposed.

What was in their heart hidden for so long, their wrong attitude towards this godly man suddenly got exposed. It's wonderful how God does it. And if that man wants, he can judge himself, but they don't usually judge themselves.

They live in ignorance of their true condition. So these people began to say like that. You know, I don't have time to read all of it. One of the things they said was, Job, have you ever met any godly man suffering?

Tell me. And Job was living 2 ,000 years after Adam. And we could point out, think of Noah, think of Enoch. Did they suffer? They walked with God. They had children. They lived comfortably. They were godly men, Enoch and Noah.

Job, did they suffer? No. Why are you suffering? Something is wrong. There's some secret sin in your life. That's what they said to him. And what about your children? One of them said in Job 8 and verse 4, Job 8 verse 4, Maybe your sons have sinned against God.

They don't know anything about their sons. Maybe your sons have sinned against God. And therefore, God has punished them for their transgression. So if you seek God and say, Okay, Lord, I'm sorry. Maybe God will have mercy on you.

So this is what these three people said. I've learned a lesson from that for myself. I read the scriptures not to judge other people. There's a verse in Hebrews 10 which says, In the volume of the book it is written about me.

You read that verse? It's a beautiful verse. Hebrews chapter 10, In the volume of the book it's written about me. And so when I read the Bible, I see what's written there about me. Not about other people.

And so I read about these people. These people who are jealous of a godly man and immediately want to judge, Why did this happen to him? And I say, Lord, let me examine my heart. Do I ever have that attitude when I see another person suffering?

Anybody. I may not be a Christian. Maybe some friend of mine is suffering. Do I immediately feel, Ah, there must be some sin in his life. That shows what an evil person I am. Not how evil he is. It shows how far from God I am.

That I don't have the humility to say, I know only 10 of his life. 90 of his life I don't know. If his children suffer, how in the world can I say it's because they sinned? I don't know 90 of their life.