Sometimes, keeping up with the happenings in this world can be frightful and downright depressing.
So much evil unleashed on this world. It seems like recently, the stories are getting worse, more often and more evil. This can be disturbing. Whether you’ve experienced this evil or just read news stories about it, this can be so painful.
Just in the last couple weeks, which was right before Christmas until today, I read too many stories to even count. Whether it be suicide, murder/suicide, robberies, fires, and any number of other things I can’t grasp my mind around.
And it seems to be getting worse all around us.
This leaves a lot of people wondering where God is.
“Why Lord?”
Trust me, I’ve asked that question a time or two.
This is a question that has led many to struggle with their faith in Christ.
Why does God allow bad things to happen?
Unfortunately, our world is sinful. We do live in an imperfect, fallen world, and the Bible says that it rains on the just and the unjust.
From the very beginning, God created the world perfect in every way Imaginable to man. There was no evil, suffering, hate, jealousy, strife or depravity.
Man enters, trouble starts!
Immediately, they began lying, deceiving, blaming, killing one another and of course they rejected God (as some still do in this present age) and as a result, sin entered into the world.
So, the world we live in now, the world as we know it, isn’t at all how God intended it to be. In fact, Man corrupted it.
I heard this analogy once and it made so much sense; Imagine pulling on the string at the bottom of your sweater and it begins to unravel.
Adam and Eve started the unraveling of human kind as we know it. And it begin to unravel and continues to unravel to this day.
And this human sin and depravity has led to all the suffering as we know it.
Hate, murder, sin and debauchery has been prevalent in our world since that time of the unraveling.
God gave Adam and Eve a free will, they used that free will to do wrong and to listen to the serpent (satan) instead of God.
If you can’t believe in a God that allows evil things to happen, remember this. “If there is evil, then there must be good.” You cannot have one without the other.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. . . . As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8-9
As we struggle with life and with life’s events, let us fix our eyes on the unseen, which is eternal rather than with the seen which is temporary.
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us and conferred on us!”
Romans 8:18
God didn’t create us to be robots, he created us to be free. We’re all given a choice to do right or wrong. We have a free will!
Unfortunately, many choose the wrong, leaving a mark of pain, anguish, hurt, distress, suffering and often times devastation on someone else’s life, due to they’re poor choices and lack of good judgment.
The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Deuteronomy29:29
You see, we won’t know everything and not everything is revealed to us. Maybe, someday when we all get to heaven, God will reveal those things to us. But for now, there are some things that are hidden from us and it’s not for us to know.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the WILL of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
Romans 8:20
If you’re blaming God, you may not understand his character….God is:
•Loving. 1 John 3:1
•Faithful & Righteous. Psalm 145:17
•Sovereign & Just. Psalm 103:19
•Compassionate. Psalm 103:8
•Refuge & Help. Psalm 46:1
And the list goes on…
If we kept His commandments, we wouldn’t kill, lie, steal, dishonor our parents, commit adultery…etc. So in breaking his laws, we fall into sin and that causes chaos.
God is not a murderer. Sinning is what makes people do bad things. They’re given a free will. They unfortunately choose depravity, but then when the consequences of their disobedience (to Gods laws) came a calling, they blamed God.
When bad choices are made, bad consequences will always follow.
When we experience bad consequences, sometimes we blame God. If we make bad decisions, we will suffer for them, period!
We should stop blaming God. We should pray for others, we ourselves must repent and turn from our ways. This way we can make good decisions, in Christ alone.
Proverbs 19:3 says, “A person’s own folly leads to their ruin, yet their heart rages against the Lord.”
All this pain we endure is just a reminder to me that this is not our home. We are temporary resident here, we’re foreigners.
This world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come.”
Hebrews 13:14
“The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”
Romans 8:18
And although God doesn’t make bad things happen, he can use those bad times in our life to strengthen us and give us a faith that we may not have had without this pain.
So, rather than get angry with the Lord, we need to run to him for our comfort.
My prayer for you is that you’d see God in all circumstances and in all His goodness.
Many Blessings,
Connie
