when i see so many people suffering, i have a hard time believing he loves anyone these days. the way people act anymore, i wouldn't blame him for wiping out the world tomorrow.....we don't deserve his love anyway. at least that's what i've been taught in the past. i've heard so many mixed messages i don't know what to believe anymore.
He does love everyone. The problem is that people forget a couple things about suffering. They don't view it in the proper context. That is why when disaster's happen, many people ask "Where is God?" They are either ignorant or too arrogent to recognize that we did this stuff. We broke the world.
We created it!! In Genesis when God created the world, it was a perfect world. No one suffered at all. There was no evil.
Then the serpent convinced Adam and Eve to eat the fruit that God told them not to so that they would know the difference between Good and Evil.
""You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.
5 "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." "
Now what the serpant did here was mix a little lie and a little truth. The lie, he told them they will not die. The truth "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes would be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
The thing Adam and Eve had was that they didn't know good and evil because there was no evil!! Its impossible to know something if it doesn't exist for you. But that logic wasn't in their head and they ate. It was then they knew evil, because evil entered the world. They tried to grasp equality with God in knowing Good and Evil and boy did it backfire. God told them not to do this because he honestly didn't want his children that he loved to know what evil was. Evil is a tough pill to swallow and its only after we find out what it is, that we wish that we had never found out in the first place.
And suffering comes with evil. Dieseases, disasters, pain, and the selfish ambitions of men all come with evil. What also comes with evil is seperation from God. God can not accept evil in his presence and he must judge evil. If he didn't he would not be perfect.
I know lots of people are uncomfortable with it but God is limited by one thing. His own perfection. So loving us as much as he did, God did the only thing that he could. He became a man, was perfect, and took his own pain and punishment that we deserved so that those who accept his sacrifice and the forgiveness it offers could be reunited with God into his family.
However while those of us that belive in him can be reunited with him, it has not pleased him yet to re-perfect the world. He will do that eventually at his own time. And at that time his kingdom will return in its completness to the earth.
Until such time we are called to bring his kingdom and act out his kingdom in bits and pieces. First by accepting him and reuniteing ourselves with him. But also to put aside our selfish ambitions, but also to help aid those people who are suffering from the effects of sin being in the world such as poverty, disease, pain, disaster, etc And also of course to lead other people to him.
And lastly the thing is that suffering is a temporary thing. And death does not exist to God. One of my favorite passages is Luke 20:38 for this reason. It says "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living,
for to him all are alive"
I like this passage because it reminds us that when people die bodily death that we should not use that to be upset with God or question God. It is only because people look at only worldly things that they have a hard time with death. But when you can see the bigger picture, even for just a glimpse you recognize that death is just a part of this world.
Yes you still miss their presence and Jesus understood that as he wept when his friend died. But Jesus knew, just as we should know that death isn't the end all be all. And death is certainly no evidence that God does not love us. Only evidence that this world is something we broke that only God can fix. And God has promised us he will fix it.
And I trust that because God has been faithful to his promises before. I also trust that because the one and only thing that limits God is his own perfection.
GOD CAN'T LIE.
And yes I belive that God loves me and all people individually, because he said he does and as I said before I don't belive God is capable of lying.
But even if I had a hard time taking his word for it, I only have to look at Christ, who was the perfect and most clear demonstration of his love.
I also belive that God cares about whats going on in my life. He can't love and not care. That doesn't mean he makes everything easy for me or fixes all my problems for me. Because thats not love, making everything easy as pie and fixing all my problems would be the same thing as giving a drunk a drink and claiming that you love him. While thats when the drunkard might feel the most loved, its a broken type of love. Fixing all my problems for me would only make me more likely to cause myself more problems. Thats not good for me to do. So if I create problems, God might help me out with them, but he's not going to make them go away. The pain I experience from them teaches me not to do that again.
If he makes everything easy for me, it could make me lazy. Again that is not love! Doing things that are difficult makes me have to work and gives me a sense of self confidence. Could you imagine how bad your self confidence would be if everything was done for you with no difficulty, work, or struggle on your own part? Again I'm not alone on these things at all God helps me with them, he gives me strength, gives me wisdom, love etc. He supports me when my goals please him and he helps me. But in his love he actually makes me earn it for myself at the same time.
Love, real love is so misunderstood in our society. Real and perfect love does what is best for you, not necessarily what you want. And even though I'm still a young man, there are cases in hindsight that I am VERY glad God didn't give me what I wanted at that time. And because he didn't give me the stupid thing I wanted then, I have much better now.
It wouldn't bother me, really.
