“Someone once asked Billy Graham, ‘If Christianity is valid, why is there so much evil in the world?’ To this the famous preacher replied, ‘With so much soap, why are there so many dirty people in the world? Christianity, like soap, must be personally applied if it is to make a difference in our lives.’”1
As I shared in yesterday’s devotion, God’s Amazing Love, God cares for us so much that He decided to shower us with His love because He wanted to have a special relationship with us that is based on mutual love for each other. The only problem here is that in order to have this loving personal relationship with each of us, He had to give us free will. And with free will comes the choice to either love or hate God and to either do good or evil. For without free will there can be no real relationship. Loving someone is always a choice and that is exactly what God gave us – the choice to either love Him or to go our own way.
Peter Kreeft gives us a good summary of the dilemma that God was faced with when he shares: “God created the possibility of evil; people actualized that potentiality. The source of evil is not God’s power but mankind’s freedom. Even an all-powerful God could not have created a world in which people had genuine freedom and yet there was no potentiality for sin, because our freedom includes the possibility of sin within its own meaning.”2 But it is important to note that God’s permission is not the same as God’s approval. As a result, because of mankind’s sin the real question is not so much “Why did God allow evil?” but “Why do we?”
I believe that God is so good that He has given all of humanity the ultimate answer to the problem of evil and suffering in our world – and it isn’t an explanation – it’s the incarnation. Suffering is a personal problem and it demands a personal response not some deep theological explanation. Fortunately for us we serve a God who isn’t distant or disinterested in our pain – in fact He is so concerned with our pain that He hurts when we hurt because He lives inside of us! Jesus came into this world in order to go to the cross to make sense of all the pain, evil and suffering that we see and experience all around us. At the incarnation God set into motion His master plan of reconciliation. And no matter how bad a shake you may have been dealt in this life, it will seem so utterly insignificant compared to the eternity of joy and bliss that awaits us in heaven – our real home!
All we have to do to be reconciled back to God is to accept His amazing love by repenting of our sins and inviting Jesus to be our Lord and Savior. Once we take this faith step, God promises to come and abide inside of us. He may not always give us a specific answer to some of the suffering we go through but He promises to be with us in the midst of our suffering and that He will somehow work it for ultimate good.
(Romans 8:28) is our anchor verse for helping us deal with suffering, for it reads: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” We may not always understand the why behind evil and suffering but we can be confident that God will work it for good. If God could take the absolute worst thing in history, Christ’s death on the cross, and turn it into the best thing ever – our chance for reconciliation with God and eternal life, then don’t you think He can take our lesser trials and sufferings and turn them into something good? My friends God loves us too much to not bring about blessings from our trials. So the next time we get hit with adversity let’s just trust in Jesus – He will never let us down!
1 Charlie H. Campbell, Apologetics Quotes (Carlsbad, California: The Always Be Ready Apologetics Ministry, 2020), p. 76.
2 250 QUOTES BY PETER KREEFT [PAGE – 3] | A-Z Quotes (azquotes.com)