At some point in our lives I think every well meaning and good natured person asks why bad things happen to innocent people. Some people like to use this question as ammunition against God, but without understanding of God, there is no wisdom. Why is understanding God key to understanding life? Because He created life. His laws govern life. To go against this is to rebel against gravity. Hint: it's not going to work. Refer to the Tower of Babel. Man says "we don't need God, we will build a tower to the heavens and be as Gods!". God says "we'll see about that" boom, he confuses their language so they can't understand each other. They scatter in their insufficiency and abandon the tower. Man says "we don't need God, we'll find the cure for disease on our own". God says "pssht, I'll give you more diseases than you can label, and not a cure will you find". Man says "we don't need God. We'll protect our own children". God says "don't test me, i WILL teach you exactly what you need to know". Bad things happen because man is defiant, and rebels against God. Yes, this affects the innocent. Jesus is the prime example: the innocent afflicted for the iniquity of man. Jesus sacrifice offered our souls redemption, but he still allowed us free will to choose life or death. He warns us again and again:
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live
Deuteronomy 30:19.
He that loves discipline loves knowledge, and he that hates reproof is a fool.
Proverbs 12:1
Is God not loving? What is love? Is love teaching your child discipline or giving them ice cream and Mcdonalds for every meal? Which is more valuable? Which is more useful down the road. Which kind of love is your child going to grow up and thank you for? Self gratification leads to dissatisfaction, struggles with weight, addiction and preventable disease. Discipline leads to self control, satiation, health and the ability to see outside of ones own self imposed trap. You say "well, we're not children". God says you are, and refers to you as such. Do you not understand God's discipline? Does your child understand when you put them in time out? Maybe not the first time, or the second. Depending on how defiant your child is, it might take 100 times, you might resort to something more extreme. Eventually they understand cause and effect, but it's not until experience meets intellect that they truly get it. This might be decades later! By now you've probably forgotten the lesson, but your son/daughter is just getting it. If it takes decades or millennia, God will wait. You say "well, I just don't believe in a God that needs to be worshipped". Again with the understanding. I never understood this either, and frankly it ticked me off. I've never worshipped anything in my life (aside from a segment of my life when I thought Jerry Garcia was God). But I think any Grateful Dead head acid trip will do that to an impressionable young teenager;-). Anyway... God warns us:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12
Worship is a form of umbilical cord connecting us to God and protecting us from these forces. Sometimes worship is just acknowledging God and knowing that he's in control. Sometimes it's just gratitude to him that repels the darkness from our sight. I believe worship is like the Sabbath. Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man. It benefits us! God doesn't NEED it. The bottom line is that anger towards God about things we don't understand is an adolescent attitude. Potentially even a Spirit of doubt that binds us in darkness. The only way to figure it out is to ask diligently and seek out God's word for wisdom. Life is easier when we work with gravity instead of against it. That's all for now!
John Mark Mcmillan: Ten Thousand
John Mark Mcmillan- Counting On
