Yesterday, I said that I would give you a few thoughts on why God may seem to be absent in particular moments of pain, trial, or suffering. So today, without any further ado, let's launch into a few thoughts floating around in my head.
When something bad happens, regardless of what it is, we may have a tendency to wonder why God didn't stop it, or why He seemed to be absent at that time. First, let me say that there are many tragedies that happen in this world, and they sting and hurt a lot. So my thoughts on this are not to belittle the pain that comes when these happens, but rather, to seek out how our thinking may be flawed that leads up to us asking why God didn't do something about the situation.
So, something bad happens, and we wonder where God was as it happened. We may even blame God for not doing something about it, or thinking that He just wasn't there. We wonder why He didn't stop the drunk driver from getting in his car, or any other horrible scenario like this. After all, God could have done something to prevent it. He's almighty, and all powerful. Surely He could have stopped such a thing from happening.
While these things are true, let's look at what we are asking of God in this situation. We're asking Him to take control of someone who didn't control their own actions so that something bad would not happen. We want God to take control to keep bad things from happening. And I think that gives us a glimpse into our issues, and why they are our issues and not God's issues.
First, we're saying that the event which God could have prevented is bad. While many of these may be so in His eyes, we're looking at it from a very subjective side. What if we are the one who is getting into the car, thinking that we are okay to drive home. Do we want God to, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, just stop us for a reason that we cannot determine? Or if we were about to say that hurtful word that would cause damage to another, do we want God to display the kind of control which would instantly cut off what we wanted to say?
This gets to the issue of control. We want God to control the things that we think are bad. The problem is, it's what we are calling bad. While I don't believe that God wants anyone to be killed by a drunk driver, what we are really asking for is that God would stop anyone getting into a car when they don't have their full senses with them. What if that's you texting as you drive? Of if God determines that the one beer you had with lunch was too much? How much would you want God controlling what you can or cannot do? And then, how would you feel or look at someone who displayed such control in your life? Probably not with a great deal of love, but perhaps something that approached anger, or even hatred.
The next issue is determining what is actually bad. Yes, someone dying in a drunk driving accident is a tragedy. But we also have this tendency to think that what we do isn't really all that harmful, but that the other person took it the wrong way, or didn't understand what we meant. In other words, we put the sense of what is bad and not bad into our own hands.
So do we expect God to abide by our sense of bad, or right and wrong? If so, then He would have to do that for every other person in the world, and there will always be someone who thinks that they are entitled to something you deem to be precious. But if we expect God to keep bad things from happening in this world, we would have to let God determine what is bad and not bad (right and wrong). Otherwise, we find ourselves in the same situation that we are already in, with each person doing what they think is right.
Ultimately, this whole issue goes back to sin. While bad things may happen even when everyone does what is "right", overall, we can usually trace each thing back to someone's sinfulness in the situation. And with that being the case, we have the promise from God. Sin has already been dealt with, in Jesus and the cross. And there is coming a day when God will make everything new, and sin will not be a part of that. At that time, our sense of right and wrong will be perfectly in line with God's (unlike now). It won't be a control issue, but rather, a love issue, in that we will do everything which is good and right out of love for God and for one another.
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