In The Book Disappointment With God, Philip ...

In the book Disappointment with God, Philip Yancey tells the story of a man he refers to as Douglas. Douglas was a sincere devout Christian whose wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. The breast was removed, but a couple years later the cancer was found in her lungs. So she had to go through the agony of chemotherapy. One night in the middle of all this, he was driving with his wife and 12 year old daughter when a drunk driver swerved and struck them head-on. His wife was unhurt, his daughter had minor injuries, but Douglas himself received a massive blow to the head. He would have sudden headaches, dizzy spells, couldn’t work a full day, could become disoriented and forgetful, and developed double vision with one eye which refused to focus.

When Yancey met with Douglas to interview him about his disappointments with God, Douglas told him:

“To tell you the truth, Philip, I didn’t feel any disappointment with God… We tend to think, ‘Life should be fair because God is fair.’ And if I confuse God with the physical reality of life – by expecting constant good health, for example – then I set myself up for a crashing disappointment.”

~ “Douglas” in Philip Yancey’s Disappointment With God p. 213