Suffering

Hmmm, this is a more dificult blog to write from the standpoint that it is controversial in nature. Someone asked me the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people. This was in reference to the devastation in Haiti and as I write probably in Venezuela also. This is a hard question, especially for the fact that the person followed it up with, "I can't believe in a loving God, who would allow this to happen, can you explain how you would believe in God, after this disaster?"

I remember one answer that was given and it seems fairly satisfactory if not the most desired answer for this question. I believe in God, go to church and am a follower of Christ. So I get this question all the time when I talk to someone who is not a Christian and cannot follow Christ due to Him allowing bad things to happen to good people argument. The example was in regards to free-will, the thought that God did not create us as puppets to do His bidding, but with minds and wills of our own. Now this example was this, as a parent we do not choose to shelter or protect our child from every possible danger or possibility of them getting hurt. Instead we give them instructions, warns and possiblilities of what might happen if they choose to touch a hot stove but we cannot shield or stop them from possibly doing that if we want them to grow and to develop their own free-will. The person giving this example went on to say we as humans need to remember that due to sin or our exercising our free-will in a way other than God created us for has caused not only us to be fallen from the image God created for us but also the world to be fallen. Living in a fallen world has consequences and difficulties that arise, but this is due to God giving us as humans the option of exercising our will and allowing us to live with those consequences. So as long as we live in a fallen world there will be disasters and difficulties arising in our life.

I feel for the people in both Haiti and Venezuela and am praying for their safety and quick return to the way of life they had before the earthquakes. But I am not shocked or surprised at possibility of these "natural disasters" occurring due to the world's fallen state, away from the "Garden of Eden" that God created for us as humans originally.