Our Infertility and God’s Foreknowledge
There are over one billion websites on the internet, yet some days it can feel as though they contain none of the information we want to know. Approximately four million new book titles are released each year, yet too often they tell us everything we don’t want to know. At least 350,000 new tweets are published every minute, and for what? Even with all this information at our fingertips, we still long for more—especially in times of suffering.
It was June sixth, 2015. My wife and I quietly walked to our gray Honda Accord, parked at Ahuja Medical Center in Beachwood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. We had just received news of our infertility, and there was not much to say. We hugged. We cried. We drove home in silence. But the deep ache in our hearts created a longing for answers, and it didn’t take long for us to wonder: What’s next for us? What will our future look like? Will we ever be Mom and Dad?
That day, there was not one website, book, or tweet that could answer our questions. In fact, it seemed we were able to find out everything we didn’t want to know and learn everything we couldn’t care less about in response to our desperate search for answers. This is the power of suffering. The most difficult parts of our lives cultivate an appetite for the least available information—the future.
There is not one website that can tell you if your husband’s cancer treatment will be successful. There is no book that can warn you if your pregnancy will end in another miscarriage. There is no podcast you can listen to or YouTube video you can watch that will reassure you your parents’ marriage will make it. Ultimately, the most pressing questions of our future remain unanswered.
We will never know the future, but that does not mean the future is unknown. We might not have access to the answers, but the Bible confirms that God knows everything. He knows everything about the past; he knows everything in the present; he knows everything that will happen in the future. In other words, God has foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge is a defining attribute of God, separating him from and elevating him above everyone else. In Isaiah 44:7, God sets out a challenge: “Who is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and set it before me since I appointed an ancient people. Let them declare what is to come and what will happen.” God is asserting here that he alone knows what is to come and what will happen; he dares anyone else to do the same.
No one answers God’s question. And that is because no one can answer God’s question. While everyone else is wondering about the future, God is not. He knows all things about all people at all times. At this moment, there is not one thing about one person God does not know. We can trust, then, that, God knows the future beyond our current sufferings—just as he knew the future beyond his own.
Three times in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus the Son of God, shared a glimpse into his future. He told his disciples about the suffering he would endure, how he would ultimately be put to death, and the future beyond his suffering. Everything that he predicted would happen about his death ultimately did. After dying on the cross, three days later he rose from the dead—just as he said. The death of Jesus paved the way for his resurrection. His humiliation ended with his exaltation. Three days of agony ushered in an eternity of glory. The future after his suffering gave way to a future without any suffering.
This isn’t just good news for him, but it’s good news for us. The Bible tells us the resurrection of Jesus serves as a preview for you and me (1 Cor. 15:20). If we want to know what our future looks like beyond our current season of suffering, we need to look to the One who came before us. We may not know everything, but we can be confident of this: Death will give way to life, sadness will give way to joy, and eternal glory is waiting after our present agony. In the end, our story ends well.
As it turns out, there is a book with the answers we long for—and it was written almost two thousand years ago. Because of Jesus, we know our future by looking at his past. And it is full of hope. We have an eternal hope that our future beyond suffering is a future without suffering. That is the one piece of information God has made sure we know.
Mike Holwerda lives in Twinsburg, Ohio with his wife and two boys. He serves as an associate pastor of the church Christ Community Chapel in Hudson, Ohio. Mike earned his undergrad at Calvin University and earned his Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.