When we’re faced with pain and sorrow, the question always
comes up as to why God doesn’t stop the bad things in his children’s
lives. I thought I’d write a few of my
thoughts about that.
Just what are the bad things in this world and
where do they come from? And why doesn’t God just eliminate them – Can’t He
do that if He really loves us?
So why
doesn’t God just eliminate the problems that come into the lives of His
children - those people who want to serve Him and believe in Him and love Him? I think He could, and sometimes He does
intervene and put a shelter around them – but not always and that’s the
question – Why? Why sometimes, some
situations and some people?
What if it
is because God sees the entire picture.
He sees the different scenarios, the results of each action, the needs
of the people and, in His love for us, He sometimes says, “No, it would not be
best to do it your way.” That’s hard to
take since we don’t understand – we can’t see what our Father sees. We just have to believe that He is almighty,
all knowing, and good, and that He loves us.
As the years pass, we begin to be able to trust His heart, even when we
can’t see His plans.
We
read in the Bible that God is love. Not
just that He loves, but that He is the author of love, the personification of
love, He’s filled up with love. Yes, we
know that God is just and mighty and perfect and intelligent, but the Bible
stresses so many times God’s love for His creation, so why doesn’t He make our
lives smooth and perfect?
I think
the answer comes from the fact that He does love us, and, for our own
good, He wants us to love Him. I try
to picture a world where there is no love for God. Think of a world where no one knew of His
character, His love, where no one tried to please Him. What would that be
like? I’ve thought a bit about why God
desires our love and devotion and I truly believe He wants that, not for
Himself, but for ourselves. Because He
knows what our lives would be like if there was no love for God.
So,
what does the love God has for us look like? Have you ever thought about love
and freedom being a part of the same thing?
That, it seems to me, is the crux of the matter. It’s impossible, really, to love unless you
have the freedom not to love.
God could
have made us so we had no choice but to worship Him – but we wouldn’t be us,
would we? We would be a directed
machine. He could have made us so that
we didn’t have the freedom to make the choice for ourselves – but that wouldn’t
be love.
God
knew that with freedom would come trouble.
But He loved us to enough to make us free. We’re free to make our own decisions, and I
know from personal experience that many of those decisions cause pain, pain for
ourselves, pain for others, and I believe, pain for God.
And
what about the things that “just happen”?
Hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, floods, etc. cause great pain. Why
doesn’t God control them.
Genesis 3:17-18
And He said to Adam, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’,” the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful
labor all the days of your life. It will
produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
Romans 8:19 -22 tells
us;
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. We know that the whole creation has been
groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
God’s
beautiful creation is waiting for the day when it will be restored, but in the meantime,
it is frustrated and “not what it ought to be.”
So, where did that come from?
From man’s sin, man’s disobedience to God.
Our
actions cause pain – pain and sometimes disaster – but God chose to give all of
His children the freedom that is part of love.
Because there is no way to separate freedom from love.
Always
remember that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son – to
suffer pain, to die in our place – because He loves us.
Diane
