Nothing Matches God’s Power, Love and Justice – Even If It Looks Contrary

As we all know the world is full of difficult things to accept and understand:

• A father’s nightmare of two sons (22 year old Andrew and 23 year old Freddie) dying in two different wars: Afghanistan and Fallujah. (See Father Describes Unbearable Pain on cnn.com)
• A mother drowning her five children, one at a time, in the home’s bathtub (6 months old to 7 years old)
• 81 people needlessly dying as the result of the heat wave in CA these past 11 days.
• One dear soul suffering from severe TMD, back pain, dental pain, and asthma; loss of vision, mobility and appetite; and a headache of migraine proportions. The tentative diagnosis is trigeminal neuralgia, the “most terrible pain known to man.” (Read Please Pray, July 21, 2006.)
• A couple’s losing their baby through miscarriage
• Deadbeat dads who don’t keep up with financial and/or relationship promises.
• Wayward children raised in good homes
• Mental and/or emotional pain that won’t go away no matter how much prayer, therapy, determination and desire

Of course the list could go on and on.

The area I’ve struggled most with is “How could a loving, powerful God allow innocent children to be tortured through abuse of any kind?”So intense was my struggle that I quit college (back in the mid-70’s). I wanted to be a Christian psychologist but felt if I couldn’t resolve this issue for myself, how in the world would I be able to help others with their most painful areas?

I tried prayer, word studies, the Bible, fasting, books, counseling, and talking to others about it – nothing took away my painful confusion and disillusionment with God.

About the year 2000, I read Disappointment with God by Philip Yancey and it changed my outlook.

An excerpt from the back of the book reads:
Is God unfair? Is God silent? Is God hidden?
If God desires our love, why does He sometimes put obstacles in our way?
Why does He seem so distant?
What can we expect from Him after all?
No part of the Bible goes unstudied in the author’s search for God’s hidden nature in this compelling and profound book.”

I don’t really know why this book touched me in a way other things hadn’t. I don’t remember getting any answers about why God doesn’t always use His power to protect innocent children. I didn’t experience anything dramatic…see any burning bushes…converse with an angel…feel the touch of God’s finger.

But I do remember seeing more clearly, than I had in a long time, just who God is. God isn’t my pet genie caged in a bottle waiting for my every bidding.God’s thoughts and actions are not always going to be understood by me because He is so much more EVERYTHING than me. He is more powerful and more intelligent and more merciful just to name three areas. God knows the whole plan of everyone’s life before they were even born. I have difficulty even knowing one plan for one day for one (my) life.So my quest since then has been to see more clearly each day who God is regardless of the world’s wars, people’s evil actions, senseless deaths, and (seemingly) unconquerable pain.

I don’t know the answers, but I know the One who does.
This knowledge makes all the difference in my day-to-day life.

“…O most merciful Friend, Brother, and Redeemer; may I know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly, and follow thee more nearly.” by Saint Richard of Chichester, who died in 1255

See here for a lovely commentary on the above prayer.