2. If God is good and He loves us, why does He allow evil and suffering in the world? How could He let things like 9-11 and devastating hurricanes like Katrina and Rita happen?
No one has to prove to you that there is evil in the world and that people suffer. You see it personally and in the media every day. Why is there so much evil and suffering? Where is God in all this? Doesn’t He care? Why doesn’t He just stop awful things from happening?
As Christians who say we believe in and follow God, we often find ourselves asked to answer for Him, when we are not God ourselves. We can explain scientifically the reasons why hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, and other devastating phenomena occur, but we cannot completely explain, for example, why they strike one place and not another. Did God ”pick” on
One of the most interesting stories to come out of Hurricane Katrina is that of a pastor walking through the devastated neighborhood near his church and finding a man standing beside his totally destroyed house. The man recognized who the pastor was, shook his fist at him, and said, “Why did your God do this to me?” The pastor asked, “Do you really believe there is a God?” The man was surprised by the question and muttered something about he guessed he did. The pastor then asked, “How well do you know Him?” The man said he was not sure what the pastor meant, so the pastor proceeded to tell him what the God of the Bible was like, and how he could know him better as someone who wanted the best for his life. The pastor also said that just maybe this tragedy was a wake-up call for this man to find out what life is really all about.
We cannot answer all of the questions we have. God will not go on a witness stand and submit to our questioning. And what the Bible tells us is often not what we want to hear. The apostle Paul said, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?” (Romans 11:33-34). Job says after he has lost everything, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised” (Job 1:21, NIV). But Job also understood that knowing the reason for his suffering would not bring back anything that he had lost. What was important for him to know was that God was still there and cared about him. Job was able to say confidently, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth” (19:25). Paul also said that he was “convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). In short, we may not know why things happen, but we know that God is there, and God will comfort us, and nothing that happens will separate us from His love for us. We can pound on His door and ask Him for answers that He may or may not give, but He is always ready to come out and put His comforting arm around us.
Doing what we want to do
Often our tendency is to blame God for evil and suffering. We often forget that we sometimes may be the cause of other people’s suffering through our evil deeds. Whenever we gossip or spread bad rumors about others, steal their belongings, hurt them, or cheat them, we cause them to suffer. So why doesn’t God just destroy all evil today? Being the powerful Creator of the universe, He could. But if God were to destroy ALL evil today, He would do a complete job. This means He would have to include all our lies, our sins, and our failure to do good. If God were to destroy all evil out of the universe today, who of us would still be here at the end of the day?
Face it: we like our free will
God could have stopped evil. He could have stopped people from stealing, cheating, and killing. How? He could have made us into robots without free will, but then we would all cease to be human beings. Though God wants us to obey Him, He does not force us to do what’s right because we’re not robots. For a world to have love, there must be freedom. How would you like to have a mechanical doll? You could pull its string and hear the beautiful words "I love you." But would you want that? Where there’s free will, there is a potential for evil and suffering. And as long as we live in a fallen world with sinful and imperfect individuals, we cannot be completely exempt from evil and suffering.
And if we admitted it, we might say that we like having free will. We like having the "power" to do whatever we want, when we want, to make our own decisions regardless of what God may want us to do. Our decisions may bring evil or suffering to ourselves or to others, even though we like to think our decisions affect no one but us.
God can turn evil for something good
After tragedies like 9-11 and devastating tsunamis or hurricanes, many people ask, "Does God care? How could anything good come out of that?" Again, God is NOT the cause of evil. He permits evil to occur because we have choices. God CAN sympathize with our suffering because the worst evil that was ever done in the history of the world is the crucifixion of His Son, Jesus Christ. But something good came out of it. When Jesus Christ died on the cross, He took all our sins and punishment upon Him. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that God made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf. By Christ’s dying on the cross He took upon Himself the sin of those who would believe in Him. He suffered so that millions don’t have to. The men who crucified Jesus meant it for evil, but God allowed it so that a "greater good" could be accomplished. What we might intend for evil, God can use and turn into something good.
God does not delight in the suffering of His children. And God is in sovereign control, and He sees from an eternal perspective. We look from an earthly perspective, seeing only what is happening at this moment. But God sees from the beginning of time to the end. God knows you. He knows your future, and is able to work all things for good. The Creator of the whole universe is not wringing His hands in heaven right now wondering what He’s going to do. God promises, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5) Others may have meant evil toward you, but as a Christian, if God allows it, then He has a "greater good and greater purpose" for it in your life. "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" (Romans 8:28)
Suffering can strengthen your faith
Someone has said, "You never know that all you really need is God until God is all you’ve got." C. S. Lewis said this about pain: "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." For example, I’ve learned the most about God during the most severe trials and hardships. That’s when God’s got my full, complete attention. It’s when I have to let go and trust upon God solely to help me in my troubles.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Part of our problem with understanding evil and suffering in the world comes from our wrong ideas. We believe that if we do "good" things and are a "good" person, somehow we will avoid all of the bad things that happen in this world. But that is not the case. Jesus, the Perfect Person, suffered more than most of us ever will. Almost all of the 12 disciples of Christ died a martyr’s death, suffering in some terrible manner, such as crucifixion (Peter) or beheading (Paul). If they were not "good enough" to avoid suffering, why should I expect to do so?
So what is the bottom line?
God has done something dramatic and costly about evil and suffering by giving His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for evil human beings. "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). God is going to stamp out all evil in the end. As long as we live in this world, we will experience suffering and evil. But this world is not our real home. We’re just visiting. Everyone will die one day. But your real permanent home can be in heaven with God, where there will be no suffering (Revelation 21:4).
If you want to know heaven will be your home, you can place your trust in Jesus Christ today. Click here to see what you need to do.
