When Life Doesn’t Make Sense
As I stood beside his casket, the pain, emptiness and loss were unbearable. My youngest brother had been taken in the prime of his life. I’ll never forget the look of devastation on the faces of his wife and young children. Even now my heart breaks when I think about that day.
When bad things happen we’re often left with more questions than answers. The news media report the facts, but cannot always capture the humanity behind stories of personal tragedy or natural disaster. Life is never the same when your world gets rocked by events beyond your control. Sometimes life doesn’t make sense.
Act of God?
We often blame God when tragedy strikes. Insurance companies have even adopted language that assumes God is responsible. An ‘Act of God’ is a legal term for events outside human control such as sudden floods, tornadoes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions or other natural disasters. Does it seem fair that we blame God for all thus stuff? Recently, I saw a video posted on Facebook that featured a guy who was recording an actual tornado as it moved through his town. Instead of narrating the video, he recorded his prayers for protection as the funnel cloud ripped through his neighborhood. Thankfully, he came through unscathed. The irony is that we blame God for tornadoes and yet we pray to Him for protection from the disaster we believe He caused. That’s seems crazy!
Judgment Day
When the subject of Judgment Day comes up, most folks envision a long line of people who approach the bench one at a time only to have God dole out punishment or rewards. The reality is that we judge God all the time. When things go wrong in our life we often decide God is to blame. When there’s a natural disaster we’re pretty sure we know who’s at fault. But, when good things happen in my life I always thank God because I know He’s the one who blesses me. Since we blame Him for the bad stuff it’s only right that we give Him credit for the good stuff. So which is it? When God is in a really good mood He passes out blessings and rewards. If He’s in a bad mood, look out! It may be time for a volcanic eruption, or worse.
God in an Earth Suit
Time for a reality check. I don’t believe God suffers from a personality disorder. Let’s take an objective look at His track record. By coming to Earth as a man, Jesus provided a very clear demonstration of what God is like. Looking at Jesus we see God in an earth suit hanging out with his children on the planet He created. Jesus said very plainly that when you’ve seen Him, you’ve seen the Father. He also said that He only did what the Father was doing. As a result, everything He did and said was in synch with God. (See John 14:9 and John 5:19)
So what did he do? Healed people who were sick. Restored sight to he blind. Restored mobility to people who were crippled. Forgave people who made mistakes. Loved people whom no one else loved. He did this 24×7 for 3 solid years. He healed and restored everyone He encountered. His success rate was 100%. When you read the account of Jesus’ life in the gospels it’s clear that His mission was to demonstrate the love of the Father and to destroy evil and it’s affects on people. He didn’t make anyone sick to teach them a lesson. He healed them. He didn’t cause storms; He calmed storms. He didn’t judge sinners; He forgave them. If you’ve ever wondered what God is like just look at the life of Jesus. Period. (See Matthew 4:23-24, 15:30, Mark 4:35-41, Luke 4:18-19, Acts 10:38, 1 John 3:8)
Cosmic Control Freak?
God created the universe by speaking it into existence. We all agree He’s very powerful. But the big question is, how does He use that power? Many people seem to believe He’s some kind of comic control freak who keeps a tight grip on everything that happens in your life and mine. There are a number of religious traditions that teach the view that God decides the destiny of everyone.
Islam, the second largest religion in the world teaches:
“Anything that happens on earth, or to you, has already been recorded, even before the creation. This is easy for GOD to do.” (Surat Al-Hadid 57:22)
“Allah created you and that which you do.” (Surat As Saffat 37:96)
There are large numbers within the Christian world who also believe that God exerts a kind of omni-control over everything. If this were true then we might need to question God’s character or fitness to run the universe. Every day we hear about terrible things that happen. If God is controlling everything, why doesn’t He simply prevent bad things?
Where is the Love?
There’s just one problem with the theory that God is a cosmic control freak. God is love. His relationship with us is based on love, respect and trust. A relationship based on control and fear is totally inconsistent with God’s character. He’s sovereign, so He could easily control everything, but He chooses not to. He has given us the ability to choose and He respects our choices.
If God were a control freak, I’d imagine His first conversation with Adam might go something like this:
GOD: “Hi Adam. I’m God and I just created you. I hope you enjoy this beautiful garden because it’s your home now. Your job is to take care of it. Oh, I really need you to be my new BFF, okay? Let’s do dinner tonight. My treat. I hope this is cool with you. By the way, you have no choice in the matter. Have a nice day!
ADAM: Okay, God. What time is dinner?
In his book, ‘Schizophrenic God?’ Steve Shank wrote:
“Remember there were two trees in the Garden of Eden; that obviously speaks of choice. When God desires a love relationship with us, we must have the freedom to choose or reject His love. Forcing someone to love another is a misunderstanding of love.
“Because of love, God created a world in which His creatures can actually say no to Him; which, by the way is what sin is. So then we have a lot of free wills making decisions in the world that are not God’s will.”
Consider this. When His friends ask Him how they should pray, Jesus told them to pray, “Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” If God’s will automatically happens on Earth why do we need to pray for it? Later in this model prayer Jesus adds this phrase: “Deliver us from the evil one.” What’s that all about?
What You Can’t See
When it comes to life on Earth, here’s new spin on an old principle. “What you can’t see will hurt you.” Here’s what I mean. Most people and most religions acknowledge that there’s a spiritual, unseen realm that’s very real and directly influences our physical world. The New Testament guy, Paul, said that the things we see are temporary and the things we can’t see are permanent or eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18) Jesus made it very clear that God himself is a spirit and we know He’s very real and also very permanent. (John 4:24) This ‘evil one’ that Jesus mentioned is also a spirit. He’s a much less powerful spirit who’s no match for God. In fact, the devil is a created being that chose to reject God a long time ago. Ever since, he’s been causing big problems here on Earth. Here are a few New Testament sound bites that make it very clear who is responsible for the bad things we experience in life.
“The thief’s [the devil’s] purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.” (John 10:10)
“My [Jesus] purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” (John 10:10)
“Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.” (James 1:17)
“He [the devil] was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
“We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
“On planet Earth God’s will is not the only will that affects things. The reason our world looks like a war zone between good and evil is because it is a war zone between good and evil!” – Steve Shank (Schizophrenic God?)
Love Always Wins
The stuff we’re talking about here has been debated for centuries. When you’re at a party and you bring up a topic like ‘free will’ you may as well toss a hand grenade into the room. Mostly, this is because people tend to cling to their religious traditions or defend their preconceived notions about God. But, when you take a close look at the Jesus story in the gospels it’s hard to image that God would ever do anything to harm His children—you and me. There may be times in life when we experience the negative consequences of bad choices we’ve made. However, we can be confident our Father will never harm us or design a scenario in which evil is used to teach us a lesson or get our attention. I’ll admit that I can’t always understand or explain why bad things happen.
“When you see an evil intent in the world, it’s the result of a will other than God’s. Things can happen that are genuinely not God’s will when free will is possible. Free will has made evil possible. Why then did God give free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.” – Steve Shank (Schizophrenic God?)
I’m convinced that God loves us passionately and He cares deeply about what happens in our lives. Because God is sovereign, He rules over everything. God could exert His control over every event, but He loves us enough to let us choose. In the end, God will get His way and all evil will be eradicated. His way is love and love always wins.
Copyright 2014 John H Briggs
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