The World and Its Mess

Here we are living in the world, a great big globe with billions of people on it. And somewhere there is God who created the world and all that is in it. And here’s the free-willed creature made in God’s image. Yet, even being made in God’s image, we are responsible for much of the suffering that we see around us. In this world there are millions of calamities happening every single day. A child runs out in front of a car and is critically injured. A man with a gun goes into a Post Office and begins to blast away and several are killed while others are wounded and bleeding. A tsunami comes and wipes out whole villages and towns and hundreds are swept away in the great flood. Families are torn apart when the husband comes home with his girlfriend, packs his clothing and drives away. Alcoholics in drunken stupor rage against children and wives, beating them senseless and, when sober, beg for forgiveness and offer promises of “never again,” only to break them over and over.

This is us and the world we live in. And where is God in all of this? Why is this allowed to continue? Why was it allowed to happen in the first place? If God is all powerful and loving and kind why did He create a world in which things could go wrong? Why are there floods, tsunamis, Katrinas, tornadoes, droughts and the like? Why do righteous people suffer in these things? We understand the wicked suffering, even if we don’t like it much (We make excuses for those we care for. He didn’t mean to beat his wife to death – he was drunk, or under the influence of some drug – he couldn’t help himself. He’s my husband. Please don’t send him to prison for stealing all that money. What will my children do without a father figure around?), but why the righteous? What’s that all about?

And if God is all powerful and He recognizes the mess the world is in and that it breaks down every once-in-awhile, why does He not fix the breakdown problems and make the world function properly?

There are answers to these questions, but we believers don’t care for most of them. The ungodly, the wicked and the apathetic don’t mind some of the answers, but if we think ourselves believers we don’t really like them. In fact, we downright hate some of them.

Here are some answers:
1. God is not all-powerful
2. God is not all-loving
3. God enjoys watching us suffer – He sits in the heavens and laughs (Psalm 2)
4. God is not paying attention
5. God started it in creation and just let it go all by itself to some natural conclusion where the universe simply runs out of power and everything turns cold and dies
6. God just allows everything to happen however it all happens. Total randomness – (Ecclesiastes 9:11) and then He works some good out of it. God is a step behind and uses things He had nothing to do with in order to work out something Good.
7. It’s a mystery and we cannot understand anything unless God specifically said it (God moves in a mysterious way – Job 9:10; Romans 11:33)
8. God brought the suffering and has an eternal purpose for it

I’m guessing there may be many more explanations people might offer, but these are a good sampling. So how are we to understand things? Are any of these true? Are any of them helpful?

Concerning the first four, I am convinced, most believers would deny these outright. God is all-powerful and all-loving and He does not enjoy watching us suffer. He is paying attention and sees what is going on. If this is true, what then?

Number five is a possibility. The world is like a wind-up clock, the creation was wound tight at the beginning and just continues to run until… The problem with this is that it almost totally leaves God out of the equation. That will never do.

What about six? This is possible. God waits until something happens and then makes something good out of it, the tsunami of a couple of years ago, for instance. It just happened and God thought, “Hmm, I can get some of my people to go there, take a little food, clothing and blankets and they will have an opportunity to speak to them about my Son.” I think I’ll use this for that purpose.” Or perhaps the Joseph sent to Egypt episode, if one prefers a biblical example. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and God thinks, “Hmm. I can use this to get all of the family in Egypt.” This might do, but it leaves God a step behind in everything that happens. God is always trying to catch up. It reminds me of Willy Nelson’s “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys;” “Sadly in search of and once step in back of themselves and their slow moving dreams…” Yow. Can I believe God is always a step behind? I don’t find ANY comfort there.

That brings us to seven. (Six and seven are a combination of this really) This is one that many believers attach themselves to. It is a part of the “Open Theism” theory. God doesn’t know those things that haven’t happened yet. He chooses (He’s forced, because they haven’t actually happened, so how can one know what is going to happen until it has actually happened?) to know them the same way we know them, by waiting for them to happen. When they happen God knows them. Once He knows them then He can make something out of them, but for us it’s all a mystery. How can God do something with an event if He didn’t even know that event was going to take place? Or does He choose to know – in advance – some things that will happen and not know others things that will happen until they happen? For instance, He knew Jesus was going to be crucified, but He didn’t know I was going to be born or you were going to be born until we were born. Or (You fill in whatever you think He didn’t know until it happened). I struggle with this one because we know that God knew many things were going to happen before they happened because He specifically told us they were going to happen and then they did! So what do we do with this idea? Personally, I reject it. God is either omniscient or He’s not. If He knows everything He doesn’t have to wait until it happens before He knows it.

That brings us to number eight, which I believe is the only plausible answer to the whole question of suffering, pain and death. Not only is it plausible it is filled with comfort. It tells me that my suffering isn’t totally random and it’s not totally from the devil either. Of course randomness exists. God tells us it does (Ecclesiastes 9:11). But remember, God allows random things to happen. God chooses to allow what He allows. So even randomness isn’t TOTALLY random. Of course Satan is involved with our suffering. Job one teaches us this, if we ever questioned it. Again, Satan was there in the garden leading Adam and Eve into sin and became part of the reason for our downfall. He is called the ruler of this world (John 16:4b-11). But these being true it does not take away the purpose and plan of God to work out our salvation through trials and sufferings.

Genesis chapter three tells us that God brought a curse on the woman, man, the earth itself and even Satan. He took away man’s access to the tree of life so man could not live forever on this earth in his sin. From the moment man’s access was taken away he began to die. The death process includes aging, weakening, sickness and ultimately the ceasing of the body being able to function and man dies. God told us the PURPOSE of this: ”Then the LORD God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—‘ therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.’

The implication seems obvious to me that now man knows good and evil (prior to this he was naïve, but once knowing good and evil man chose/would choose the evil) and would more often than not choose the evil over the good. He could not be allowed to live forever with or in such a condition. Imagine how awful, how dreadfully appalling life would be if man was allowed to live forever in his evilness. We would end up getting worse and worse and worse. Having some movie producer drug a thirteen year old girl and then sodomize her, as wicked as that is, would be trivial compared with what we would become if we were allowed to live forever with no fences to curtail our wickedness.

So death is not a total enemy. It is a fence put there to restrain some of our sinfulness.

And suffering is not a total enemy either. Remember what we are told about the good and righteous Jesus? In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, (Hebrews 5:7-9).

Did Jesus suffer? Yes! Was it of any benefit to Him? Again, YES! Was it of any benefit to us? The suffering was essential to His perfection. He was not a complete and acceptable sacrifice without the suffering. A baby Jesus could not be offered because it would be unacceptable. It could not have known to choose the good over the evil. It would not have been allowed to choose God over Satan. No. Jesus could not have been offered as a baby and suffering is a part of what this planet’s human creatures have to undergo. If Jesus was to be one of us, and He was (John 1:1-5, 14), then He had to suffer right alongside of us. He had to be tempted in all points like as we. Read Hebrews 2:5-end over and over and see the point that Jesus was one of us. He was human. He underwent the things we undergo. Pain, suffering and death are a part of this existence and Jesus needed to undergo those in order to bring us to glory!

So, even if we cannot see the benefit of suffering in our own lives, but I believe we can, we obviously can see it in the life of Jesus Christ. The reading of Hebrews chapter 2 makes it very plain that Jesus suffered because He was one of us and He had to suffer in order to bring us to glory. I know I said that earlier, but it has to be repeated over and over so we understand that suffering is NOT without purpose.