Other than perhaps the atheists out there, who hasn’t asked this question? If you’ve been living on planet Earth for a while and you haven’t asked it in earnest yet, it’s a near certainty that you will eventually.
When I was in my twenties, a friend said something that really struck me at the time. He said, “Life is hard; for the most part it’s really not much fun. It’s just really hard.” Maybe I had just been going through a rough patch at the time, but those words stuck and at times they seem a perfectly accurate characterization of life.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an optimist—a “positive thinker” who’s always seeing the glass as half… no, three quarters full, even when I’ve been told we’re down to a few drops. It’s just that I also know that life really is hard; setbacks, disasters, challenges, illness, death—bad stuff happens to everyone, to one degree or another.
It’s true that some people seem to get more than “their share” of tragedy in life, which, of course, then causes everyone else to again ask that same question: “Why, God, did You allow this to happen?” as those atheists smugly proclaim, “See! It’s like I’ve been saying, either God isn’t ‘all loving,’ or He would have prevented this… OR, if He could not prevent it, then it proves He is not ‘all-powerful.’”
I asked the question after the Butte County fires. I ask it again whenever I hear news about some other tragic event. Life is hard and sometimes ugly. And very often, it is heartbreaking. “Why, God? Why?”
Of course, life isn’t all bad news; there is very much good and bright and wonderful in the world. But the questions asked by the atheists deserves an answer. If you’re a parent and you haven’t dealt with this issue yet, get ready, because you’re going to have to deal with it eventually.
I do believe there is an answer, but in order for it to be real for any given person is a very personal matter. Bad stuff happens in life for only one reason: it is the catalyst for our one-on-one, private conversation—our introduction, if you will—with our Maker. And if we’ve already been introduced, it is the vehicle by which your relationship grows. For some, it comes as a slap on the face because we’ve been traveling in a wrong direction. For others it starts through anger or even rage.
And then there is heartbreak; the one we, at first, think most cruel. “Why would God do this?”
Until I was in my early thirties, I thought about religion and God and pondered “the” question with the brain that either He or Darwin gave me, but my and my wife’s“conversation”—our personal introduction—didn’t happen until we lost our beautiful daughter, Emma, shortly after her birth. It was then that the pondering stopped; all the cerebral gymnastics searching for an “answer” ceased, as everything became crystal—and right down-to-the-bone-marrow real.
Please don’t misunderstand; I don’t wish hardship or heartbreak on anyone. But it’s going to happen, and when it does, you’ll be faced with a decision—the decision—to either answer His call and get the (your) answer, or turn away.
As Christmastime approaches, my hope for you is that you would trust and know that if you choose to answer and not turn away, you will be blessed beyond measure, as the weight and darkness of life’s tragedies will be lifted.
You will come to see that it is only through life’s most difficult challenges and heartbreaks that our egos are moved aside; removed, in fact, so that we can know God, and discover that we are truly loved and valued as His most precious children.
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