PERSPECTIVES
By: Sy A common argument is that since God is all powerful and all loving, that there should be no evil in the world if He truly exists. The situation is much more complicated than that. In the beginning, God made everything including people. God made people special and in His image. One day, Eve, the first woman, ate fruit from the tree that God told them not to eat from. This is the only thing God had said not to do, but they did it anyway. Eve got Adam, the first man, to eat some as well. They then had realized their mistake and hid from God, but you can’t hide from God. God said that there would now be pain death, dangers, and animals would fear people. This is how evil got introduced to the world. The question remains, “If God can tell the future, then why did he put that tree in the garden?” The answer is simple. God wanted us to love Him. For us to truly love Him, then there would also have to be a way for us to not love Him. Eating the fruit from that one tree was sinning against God. Adam and Eve had been told that they could be powerful like God if they had eaten the fruit. They put themselves before God. They did not become powerful because it was a lie from a serpent. We have all sinned against God most simply obvious by looking at the Ten Commandments. Therefore, there is evil in the world. It is all our faults, not God’s. God does not have to be non-existent for there to be evil in the world. By: JT Suffering exists in the world today, not because God allows it, but because of the collective human sin that occur every second in our world today. When God made Adam and Eve, he blessed them with the gift of free choice and they, like us, made a mess of their choices and let evil into the world. Now, God is all powerful meaning that he could destroy evil and sin as whole with a single thought, so why doesn’t he? That would mean that the free choice that he gives all people would be worthless. If you went through life where you were led by the hand and any mistake you made made no impact or had no consequence, what value would your life have or what would you ever learn. God is a loving father who hates to see us suffering, but it is not His fault that it exists, it is our fault and our choices that make it possible for there to be suffering. By: Devon To answer this question we’ll expound upon the following points;
Our Heavenly Father deals with us, His children, in ways that are not unlike we as earthly parents deal with our children here in the world. As parents, we know it is not wise for us to remove any possibility of suffering from the lives of our children. If children get everything they want and are protected from every disappointment and trial they will be spoiled and unprepared to deal with life as adults. Sometimes God allows us to suffer in order to get our attention. Rarely does a person ever become closer to God, learn to lean on Him more and trust Him more fully, during times of peace and prosperity. It is when we experience times of suffering or hardships that we are far more likely to draw near to God. C.S. Lewis said it like this, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Also, it is imperative that we know and remember that if we want to live in a world where love is possible for us, we must live in a world where free choice is granted to us. In a world where we are given the freedom to choose between good and evil, people will sometimes make evil choices that will cause suffering. However, if we did not have freedom of choice, we would not be able to experience genuine love. Without the freedom to choose between good and evil, right and wrong, we would be robotic, operating on instinct alone and therefore incapable of being able to give or receive love. God wants us to be free to choose whether or not we will accept and return the love He gives us. By: R. T.
Why, oh why, is there suffering in the world? It’s ugly and painful, heartbreaking and destructive, it brings sadness, hopelessness and anger. It just doesn’t make sense why a loving God allows all of this heartache. Let’s draw ourselves back to a larger view of suffering. How did it start and why? God created a perfect world and created perfect humans to live in it. When Eve chose to disobey her Creator and let Satan deceive her, this is the moment sin entered the world and this is what allows suffering to exist. Everything changed from perfection to approaching disaster. Satan brought this disaster upon us maliciously and purposefully. This is his plan for you, to bring pain and agony to your life in every way he can devise. (1Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.) God only wants to give you peace and hope, (Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.) but we want to shake our fists at God and angrily convict Him with our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9 "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?), “How can You allow this!” We prefer a God that we can hold accountable and in turn bring Him down to our level, “Guilty!” We also believe He isn’t so powerful and amazing because He can’t seem to stop all this hideous suffering, He’s ineffective and therefore not worth believing in. Pride is revealed in these wrong views of God and suffering. (Psalms 10:4 The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts.) We are so very prideful, believing we deserve an easy life, a painless existence, a utopia of all that is good and pleasant. Suffering is not good or evil in itself, it doesn’t exist on its own but dwells in the hearts of sinful men, born of Satan and delivered by us to one another with indifference. But God uses these ugly painful experiences for great good. (Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.) Pain draws us inward causing us to ask why this is happening, we want to know how this serves any purpose. We wrestle with our very soul, wondering if God caused this. “Why me? Why this? Please take this ugliness away!” Suffering points us toward God and urges us to make a decision of belief or allow ourselves to suffocate in unhappiness, self-pity, and bitterness. Satan is claiming you! Taking possession of you fully. He is deceiving you! (2 Corinthians 11:3 But I fear, lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.) Inside what we really want is comfort, nearness to God and nearness to someone who can save us. When something is tempered, like metal or chocolate, something is blended into it to bring it hardness or a more desired consistency. Suffering is God working in you, tempering you. When suffering is added to men it brings about something better in the end, something stronger and more beautiful. Soldiers are tempered by combat, it gives them wisdom, strength, courage and the will to prevail and win against the enemy. God is tempering us, adding some of His Son, our Suffering Savior, to make us stronger and so much more courageous. (Psalms 66:10 For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined.) When we realize God is real and there waiting for us, we will want to snuggle up to Him and begin to learn who He is and why we exist. We were created for His pleasure and to serve Him. Suffering brings us to His feet in humbleness and love, eager to know Him with all our heart. (1 Peter 5:10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.) God uses suffering in the world for good even though Satan means it for evil. Satan HATES you! He wants to destroy every cell in your body and drive you to an anger filled grave without God. Don’t allow him to win, be refined by God like gold and let Him temper you to become a mighty soldier for Christ! (James 1:2-4 2 My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3 knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.) God is not wanting to save you from suffering but to save your soul from eternal torment. His great wisdom and love, even though sometimes painful, will change your suffering into eternal life if you will allow it. (John 3:16-17 16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.) |
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