In the wake of the horror from Newtown, Connecticut last Friday, many are asking themselves how God could allow such a tragedy. The question about suffering is a question that has plagued many people through the ages, leading some away from God. Let me point out several things which the Bible teaches.
God made man with the ability to love Him freely – Joshua 24:15; John 7:17.
Since man can love God freely, man can also choose to not love God freely, that is, he has the choice to hate God. “Forced love is rape” in the words of Norman Geisler. The story of the flood of Noah shows that many people choose to hate God, of their own will. We may wish God had stopped Adam Lanza from making his evil choice – but do we want God to dictate our behavior? Some people hate God as He is; what if He did jump in and make people’s decisions for them? How much more would they criticize them?
The flood of Noah not only destroyed the disobedient, but it also brought havoc upon the world.
Thus, we suffer from our own poor (sometimes sinful) choices; we suffer from the poor (sometimes sinful) choices of others; and we suffer sometimes from the choices made by previous generations (like Noah’s generation).
Through it all, God wants us to serve Him – Ecclesiastes 12:13-14.
Our great goals in life, according to Jesus Christ, are to love God supremely and to serve our fellow-man sacrificially – Matthew 22:37-39.
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Otherwise, if life is going awful and I have neither money nor good health – I am to love God supremely and serve my fellow-man sacrificially.
Only by allowing good and evil to fall randomly on both the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45) can God be assured that we have proven, during our “probation period” that we love Him supremely and we served our fellow-man sacrificially.
Thus, this life is both unimportant (eternity, not suffering, is what matters) and important (we prove in this life that we love God supremely and we serve our fellow-man sacrificially).
Finally, death is both certain (in that we will all die – Hebrews 9:27) and uncertain (none of us knows when we will die).
What do we need to do through it all? Love God supremely and serve our fellow-man sacrificially.
–Paul Holland
