Success and Failure Blog

Be careful what you pray for!  If we pray for patience, God may grant us challenges so we can learn patience.

 It’s funny how we forget that we asked God for something after we get it.  If it isn’t given in the form we expected, we will often ask God why.  Yet He specifically states in the Bible to ask and ye shall receive.

God listens to us.  He often will give us exactly what we want, so if we don’t examine our prayers carefully, we may get “exactly” what we prayed for.  Is it right to pray for rain, then gripe because of the storm?  Is it right to pray for healing when it isn’t God’s will for healing?  God doesn’t grant us a perfect life because He granted us Free Will.  He allows us to go through trials and valleys because it is where we learn.

A few months ago, my mother passed away after battling cancer.  I knew she would eventually die.  It is not God’s will for our physical bodies to live forever.  These bodies are only vessels that carry us through this life on earth.  They are not meant to last forever.  I didn’t ask God to heal my mother from her cancer.  I only asked that His will be done.  I didn’t ask that He take her pain away.  The body is going to experience pain.  I asked Him to help her through her pain.  I didn’t ask that He remove my pain of going through the cancer with her.  It would have made me an unfeeling, cold wall.  If she had to suffer, was it right for her to have to do it alone?  After all, she had been through pain and suffering with me when I had trials in my life.

What is the pain on this earth anyway?  We are selfish to ask God to remove our pain.  What pain did our Jesus suffer when He gave Himself for our sins?  We cry out to our Lord for much simpler things than any Jesus suffered for us.  To honor the Lord is to bear our pain with grace.  God deserves better from us than to hear us whine about something so fleeting as the pain we suffer on this earth.  These bodies and our suffering here are nothing compared to the joys we shall have in eternity.

Our prayers should honor our Lord.  He expects us to be honest with Him, and that honesty extends to our emotions and our needs and desires.  He is more receiving of our prayers when we are honest with ourselves and respectful that He is the one in control and knows much more about our situations than we ever can.

“ So after you have suffered a little while,

He will restore, support, and strengthen you,

and He will place you on a firm foundation.”

1 Peter 5:10 NLT

    I remember an incident from several years ago, and my attempt to anchor a newly planted tree. As I looked out the window on a particularly windy day, the tree was swaying violently from side to side. After watching this for over an hour, I decided to spring into action.

 I found some tent spikes, rope, and hammer; and went to work. I would save it’s life. I tightened it as best I could, and was pleased to see that it was now completely stationery. The tree was safe. The adversity it faced was over.

 Before I can reach the garage to put away the tools, the tree snapped in half. I had taken away the only defense the tree had to survive the wind. Without bending in the storm, it had no strength to stand any longer.

 The same can be said for helping a baby chick break out of the shell it is struggling to escape. By helping, the baby soon dies. It relies on the struggle to build enough strength to live.

 Sadhu Sundar Singh is quoted as saying, “A newborn child has to cry, for only in this way will his lungs expand. A doctor once told me of a child who could not breathe when it was born. In order to make it breathe the doctor gave it a slight blow. The mother must have thought the doctor cruel.

 But he was really doing the kindest thing possible. As with newborn children the lungs are contracted, so are our spiritual lungs. But through suffering God strikes us in love. Then our lungs expand and we can breathe and pray.”

The Problem of Evil

Since the beginning of time, there has been a war raging in the cosmos. It is a war that starts in heaven when Lucifer decides that he wants to be God. Lucifer was God’s most beautiful creation. He walked before the throne room daily and was considered an archangel. But Lucifer became jealous of God, and it was out of that jealously that Lucifer convinced one third of the angels to join his efforts to overthrow God and become God himself. It was at this point He ceased being an archangel and became the Prince of Darkness. The Devil’s revolt resulted in him being cast out of Heaven by God and ever since Satan and God have been enemies.

In our time we look forward to the day that evil will no longer hold sway in the world. We long for a heaven on earth. And one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth. But until that day comes when evil is finally no longer, evil still remains and causes much pain on the earth. In God’s original creation everything that God created was good. In fact for a time, humanity itself knew no sin. Then man sinned, and evil manifested itself into the world. Evil can be defined “as the refusal to accept the true God as God. True evil elevates itself or another to replace God.” The question often arises, if God being holy and just knew that evil and sin would come to the earth than why did He not prevent it or stop it? There are three reasons why God allows evil to continue in the world and they are the following: 1.) God created man with free will and thus gave man the ability to choose to accept Him or reject Him, 2.) The fact that evil and suffering is so prevalent in our lives reveals the fact that we have our own inadequacies and that we need God, and 3.) God allows evil because He does not want His children to get used to the present life because as the Bible says, we are just pilgrims and sojourners passing through and as believers, Heaven is our final eternal state.
God created man with free will and thus gave man the ability to choose to accept Him or reject Him. God did not create evil. God did create persons with freedom who could practice it. So we are who actualize evil, not Him. He could have created a world without the possibility of evil, but He preferred a world with free choice. God created us with the power of choice. To quote from Ravi Zacharias,
“What would it take to create a loving world void of evil? A world in which love is capable of meaningful expression and experience would also imply a world in which there is choice. If someone tells you that they love you, those words mean something because they are freely given. If you learned that someone had told you they loved you but that they had been forced to say it, their words would not mean very much. Thus, if we want to speak of a loving world, we must also speak of a world in which choices are exercised. And in such a world, there is also the possibility of choosing a course of action that is not loving, i.e. evil.”
True love implies and demands a free choice! Or else you would have a fixed environment in which humanity would be robots. Alvin Plantinga claimed the following:
“If God creates human beings with true, morally significant free will (where humans can freely decide to act in ways that really do advance goodness in the world, or really do cause evil in the world against self, others or world), and if God wants a world in which there are significant amounts of moral goodness, it’s possible that God cannot get that kind of world without significant amounts of moral badness as well. After all, if people are left free by God, then the morally significant states of the world will in large part be up to the decisions of humans, not up to God.”

The fact that evil and suffering is so prevalent in our lives reveals the fact that we have our own inadequacies and that we need God. Simply put, all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. When Adam and Eve sinned, God promised that one day there would be one coming that would be a sacrifice for sin and would make a way for people to have there relationship restored to God. That was done when Jesus died on Calvary. Jesus took all of humanities sins, and bore them for all of humanity so that people might have a chance to be saved and inherit eternal life. We see here that “Christ’s atonement guarantees the final end of evil and suffering”. Alcorn says, “The drama of evil and suffering in Christ’s sacrifice addresses the very heart of the problem of evil and suffering. One day it will prove to be the final answer.” The answer to the problem of evil and suffering according to Alcorn,“is not a philosophy, but a Person; not words, but the Word.” Jesus Christ is the answer to the problem of evil. Only He can help us with the feeling of inadequacies and the feelings of hopelessness. Only He can save humanity from their sins. Only Jesus can provide true lasting peace.
God allows evil because He does not want His children to get used to the present life because as the Bible says, we are just pilgrims and sojourners passing through and as believers, Heaven is our final eternal state. If everything was perfect and no problems ever surfaced and there was no pain in life then people would not have to rely upon God anymore for anything. Alcorn points out that “in order to appreciate our eternal future, we will remember the sufferings of the present.” Because we have pain and suffering, we must rely upon an Almighty God. Human beings do not have all the answers. Dinesh D’ Sousa writes.

The only way for us to really triumph over evil and suffering is to live forever in a place where those things do not exist. It is the claim of Christianity that there is such a place and that is available to all who seek it. No one can deny that, if this claim is true, then evil and suffering are exposed as temporary hardships and injustices. They are as transient as our brief, mortal lives. In that case God has shown us a way to prevail over evil and suffering, which are finally overcome in the life to come.”

So in reality, in the big picture evil and suffering is only temporary. So every trial and every tribulation that we may face in life is well worth it, because one day those that believe in Jesus will receive new resurrected bodies that will no longer be corrupted. We will be in Heaven where Jesus is, and there will be no more sin. Revelation 21:1-7 best illustrates what will happen in the end: 1And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. 2And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. 4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. 5And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. 6And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.
In conclusion, we have seen the three reasons why God allows evil to exist in our present world. According to Ed Hindson and Emir Caner,
“What evil forces us to conclude is either God is not good, or that our conception of God’s relationship toward us needs serious rethinking. The evidence about evil drives us decisively to this latter conclusion. God uses evil, suffering, and disorder to drive us to Himself. If He gave only good, we would be self-satisfied. If he had given immediate death when we sinned, He would be just. That He gives us partial goodness and partial suffering now forms a texture of hope that in the future, He will in fact make all things right in a final consummation and restoration. God is not through: He will continue to work on us, like a persistent sculptor working the metal with hard blows and constant lighter corrections, to help us become worthy of happiness if we receive Him and submit to His plan. On most occasions, it seems, we do not know why God allows certain evils. But we know someone who knows these things, and we can therefore trust Him to make good on His promise that “he who began a good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

It’s easy to see that many disasters are man-made.  God, in His infinite wisdom, lets people have free choice.  He doesn’t want us to be mindless robots.

In fact, when we choose to follow Him, by trusting Christ as our Savior and inviting Him into our hearts, we are freed. We are set free from the penalty of sin, because Jesus Christ, God in flesh, was punished for us, the just for the unjust. We are set free from the burden of sin, because we can just go to Him and receive His forgiveness, and He will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And, one day, we will be set free from the presence of sin. In Heaven, there will be no suffering! What a joyous day that awaits us!

But, here, there is suffering. And, while many evil things can be blamed on people rebelling against God – even famines can at times be blamed on peoples’ mismanagement – earthquakes can’t. So, how do we explain such things?

In the beginning, the world was perfect. There was no suffering. Then, by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so that death passed unto all men, for that all have sinned. (Rom. 5:12)

What that means is, death entered the world. For the first time, things could decay and wear out. Decay means things crumble; they break down. This is one of the consequences of sin being in the world. It’s a natural consequence, just as much as staying up all night makes you tired the next day.

This breaking down of the world wasn’t limited to mankind, though. Animals were originally made to only eat plants and herbs, but yet they started to eat each other instead. That breakdown of nature was part of that cause and effect relationship.

One might say nature itself was having a breakdown. Plate tectonics were jolted to such an extent when sin entered the world, and the weather became such, that we are blessed by God *not* to have the disasters we could. God, in His infinite wisdom, protects us from a huge multitude of disasters. But, He can’t totally eliminate the cause and effect relationship that is caused by sin. If there were no cause and effect, the world would be much worse, because knowing what will logically result from what actions is necessary for normal functioning. Breaking down of things logically comes from sin.

God promises to redeem nature, and make things perfect again. Look at Romans 8:21-3: 8:21 – Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
8:22 – For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
Ro 8:23 And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body.

What these verses are saying is this:

1. There is bondage right now; but there is liberty with God. That bondage is present over all the earth. It is a bondage of courrption; this world is enslaved by that old foe called death, which causes things to decay.

2. That decay has been present since the beginning, not only in people, but in nature itself. All of Creation is said to be “groaning.” This is a poetic way of saying that the decay which causes suffering and pain spread through the entire world when man fell from Grace. The burden of sin spread through the entire earth.

3. We humans face the same problem as the world. We don’t have earthquakes, but we have disease and sickness. One person’s sickness can cause pain to that person’s family and friends. In the same way, some natural disasters cause pain to millions.

4. However, we will be redeemed. Jesus Christ has redeemed us, so we can go to heaven. And, He will one day perform an extreme makeover, if you will, on this world, so there will be no more disasters.

Until then, disasters will be a part of life. However, we have a loving God who will help us through all of the disasters that come upon us. He is an ever-present God who is with each and every one of those victims, if only they will call on Him for help.

Jesus didn’t promise a perfect life. In fact, He says, “In this world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world.” (John 16:31) he was speaking of overcoming sin and mistreatment by those who persecute, but this verse can be applied to the problem of disasters, too. Because, He can, and will, guide us through the storms of life. We just need to seek His help in this world which constantly groans because of the sin that was brought about when sin was brought into the world.