Posted on 08/10/2014 9:31:05 AM PDT by OneVike
Few seem to have good answers for the question:
“Why didn’t God just create us so that we would never have to experience pain, suffering, or sadness?”
After all, God has the power to make the world free of evil, yet He chose instead to make us creatures with free will. Thus, free will was the door left open for the possibility of evil entering our lives.
What is the purpose of pain, suffering, and evil? Why does God allow humans, who were made in His image, to live on a planet where evil abounds? God could have made us perfect without the ability to sin, and we would have never known pain and suffering.
We would be like Chatty Cathy dolls–just pull the string and watch us do and say whatever we were programed. Is that the kind of life you would wish to live? Well, obviously God did not think so either. That’s the short answer to why God created us with free will.
With free will came the possibility that Adam and Eve might disobey God of their own volition and partake of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Well, thanks to some coaxing from Satan, Eve ate the fruit and offered some to Adam. The first two humans that God created exercised the right of choice that God had given them. Because they didn’t obey God’s command, sin entered the universe and that sin was handed down to every human who was born of man. All of us, believers and non-believers alike, wrestle with the daily struggles of the “Adam and Eve” within us.
Christ died on the cross so that, if we believe in Him, we can have eternal life. However, just because we gave our life to Christ, does not mean we are immunized from the pain and suffering of this world. This is why so many Christians inevitably ask the question, “Why am I suffering God? Why do my loved ones suffer?” What if on the day we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were given God’s total and complete protection, so nothing bad ever happened to us again?
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse You to Your face. Job 1:9-11
Can you imagine what would happen if God did put a hedge about us on every side? Would not the people of the world who do not know Christ, say:
“So what, that you love Go. Anybody would love God if He protected them the way He does you. I’m not impressed. Your God doesn’t offer me anything; I live in the real world.”
What if those people, who watched us suffer, saw the way we dealt with the same issues of pain, suffering and disappointment as they deal with, and we showed an example of looking to our Father in heaven with love and gratefulness? His loving mercy allows us to be free enough to learn and grow through our trials and tribulations, like the......
(Excerpt) Read more at therelevantchristianmagazine.com ...
For is starting to clear the way for the final battle between him & the evil one [and all of those who follow him...]
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“God is not our celestial butler.” —Dennis Prager
Good reply, I like that.
I wish I would have used it in the article.
LOL
Because they won’t defend themselves?
Ask Richard the Lionhearted what he’d do with muzzies.
He’d cleave them them from head to chaps.
Watch Oh God the movie. George Burns explains it perfectly.
Since The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us, shouldn’t we as gracefully bear our sufferings for His Namesake, because of what He has done for us? Yes.
Living on earth hurts us all to differing degrees.
He never said He came to remove our sufferings on Earth but to call sinners to repentance and to salvation eternally.
He sent The Comforter to aid us in our walk as followers of The Lord Jesus Christ, not to cook our breakfasts and wash our clothes and make our daily lives painfree.
He lets us suffer for His Own reasons. Isn’t that sufficient?
To have free will, and to be able to actually make choices implies that we might make bad choices. And surprise! We do make bad choices. Then we suffer. If God wanted to eliminate all suffering, He would have to eliminate all freedom. He makes a choice on our behalf, and that choice is to allow us to choose as well, because we are made in His image.
He is a refining fire.
The Israelis are being forged right now, and the hammer is Islam. Their conversion to Christ will emerge from showers of sparks.
The inhabitants of the Tigris Euphrates Valley will be converted by the contrast between the Christians of the US Armed Forces and ISIL.
I think if there were an easier way, there would be no need for God to allow crazed bearded little wussy boys to run rampant.
Does God allow people to make mistakes?
Most suffering are the consequences of sin being visited upon us. Spiritual laws, like laws of gravity have automatic consequences when broken.
But God works all things out for good to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28), and often God will use trials to build within us His character. For His strength is perfected in our weakness, for the witness of The Lord is made manifest in accomplishing His Will through our frail, weak selves if we would but be obedient.
It often does not seem fair to us. Same as a child who cannot see the end result of what a parent is preparing for him some years down the road. No, the child cannot have a chain saw at age 8, even though he cries for one. But in time, with training he will be ready to have one and be able to use it with skill and without risk to himself or others. That is a physical analogy to a spiritual truth we cannot yet see.
The suffering and slaughter of Christians in this evil world may not seem fair to us. God is often testing to see if we will hold onto our faith in Him, or if we will buckle and give up to do things our own way.
I think the more OUr Father in Heaven allows us to suffer trials, the more He is perfecting that person for the Office Jesus Christ is preparing for them to inherit for eternity.
We have to trust God. We must trust that no matter the physical issues, our spiritual life is what is most important to God. He who began a work in us will see it to completion, and often that requires us to overcome everything this rotten physical flesh has to dish out.
Suggest reading two books “The Problem of Pain” and “A Grief Observed” both by CS Lewis. Read them in that order.
There it is! This isn’t an entitlement program!
“Does God allow people to make mistakes?”
If God didn’t allow people to make mistakes would we ever be able to really get anything right? I believe that much of what is seen as God’s judgement, especially on the scale of nations and civilizations, is really just the result of giving humanity free will and allowing us to experience the consequence of our actions.
If all my college exams consisted of multiple choice tests with only the correct answer as the available choice would my 4.0 average have any significance?
Hitler lived to be older than my mother who died of cancer. Go figure. There is no rhyme nor reason as to who suffers or dies. Apparently God only intervenes for some, not all.
Although suffering and sadness is not always the result of bad choices in the same way that ‘good’ choices do not inoculate us from suffering.
God told Job “ Where were you when I created this world? where were you when I create everything here”? I think he was essentially saying, so you suffer, so does everyone else. Guess what? That’s the way it’s gonna be.
I look at it this way. Your mothers suffering is over, Hitlers will last an eternity.
In the grand scheme of eternity, her suffering was but a blink of a blink of a blink of time.
Again, Hitlers is forever.
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