Saturday, February 25, 2012

Loving God Doesn’t Cause Tragedies

Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to those who have lived many years.“ -- Job 12:12

How can a loving, all-powerful God allow so much suffering in this world He created? It’s a question that has haunted the nights of many people as they attempt to reconcile a God of love with the suffering in our world.

There’s actually a term for this: theodicy. We want to understand why God won’t erase our pain. We want Him to send in His angels to protect our loved ones. We want Him to prevent the natural disasters and horrible atrocities that litter our world.

And He doesn’t.

We also want free will. We want to make our own choices and control our own destinies. We just want God to protect us from anything bad. It doesn’t work that way. God has graciously granted us free will but that means He allows us to make our own decisions, including bad ones. Otherwise, we’d just be puppets and not real people at all.

A loving God would never plan a rape and murder. He wouldn’t leta child get sick and die for some unknown greater good. He just wouldn’t. To think otherwise goes against everything God is.

We forget sometimes that we live in a fallen world. Eve had a choice and she chose to take the apple. Adam also had a choice and he chose to eat it. This sounds so simple and it was. But it came with devastating consequences that will linger until Jesus returns.

So we suffer. Why did we ever think we wouldn’t? The Bible is filled with God’s people who have gone through so much. Just read the book of Job. He loved God and yet he lost everything -- but God. He remained and restored Job, giving him a new family and greater possessions.

So what about illness? What about natural disasters? I once had a co-worker, an environmental reporter, who claimed we’d one day all die from the air we were breathing in that Texas town. I’m sure that was an exaggeration but look around. We’re destroying this planet. Of course we’re sick.

As for natural disasters, many of those are needed to keep earth where it will sustain life. I’m not a scientist. I won’t attempt to explain what I can barely understand myself. But just as the earth needs rain and sun, so does it need other fits of nature. And sometimes those things claim lives and destroy everything in their paths.

God is who we hold onto when tragedy strikes. We can either blame Him for human decisions or we can cling to Him for shelter in the storm. He grieves with us. He understands. And He loves us. Perhaps time and age teaches us that we can withstand the tide is only we cling to the rock.