The Problem

I think anyone who is still reading this was probably present for the faith-crisis/temper-tantrum I had a couple of years ago—you know, the one where I wasn’t sure God cared about anything at all and was ready to dissolve into a puddle of naturalism and self-pity? 

In those days, I noticed God telling me to, “Stop the cliché Christian crap and get down to the real questions!” 

And when I finally told him, “I’m not sure if you really love me,” it was like he laughed in a burst of triumph and said, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” 

In those days, I couldn’t reconcile the greatest problem that has ever faced Christianity and I was scared. Well, I’m also one of those wackos who really tend to run as fast as I can toward whatever is scarring me—not always for the better, but this time, it worked out.

So now I ask, “Why did that happen?” “How did you allow that?” and “What are you gonna do about it?”

More often, I ask God, “What do you care about?”

Is it human happiness? I really don’t think so, based on the vast majority of truly Christ-following people who, while content or joyful, have lead very difficult lives and live in very difficult circumstances. God feels our pain with us, but there is no denying that, at least some of it, he doesn’t act to stop.

Is it people doing the right thing? I can’t say so. Surely he WANTS us to do the right thing he TELLS us to do the right thing, but he doesn’t step in and control that all the time either, so I have to say it’s probably not the most important thing to him. 

To answer the question, I have to look at where God’s actions point to his priorities—the things he has done something about, even when he didn’t stop that little boy from being taken from his mother or that girl’s father from getting sick. This is what I got, whether it would or should comfort me in the face of the greatest personal tragedies imaginable, or if it comes across as insanely insensitive, I’m sharing it with you now. God cares about…

Justice. He says justice will always be done, that it belongs to him.

Redemption. It is the ultimate plan put in place, the reason the Book was written, the truest and most completely spelled out of God’s intentions. Everything will be redeemed—even when all we can see is a world run by evil men that will only be getting worse.

Love. It’s what he is, it’s eternal, it’s unconditional, no matter what horrible things happen. NOTHING can separate us from God’s love, even when our children go hungry and our homes are destroyed. That seems impossible to our minds. It seems sick and deranged to call this God love, yet he IS and the proof is in the two items above.

Not good enough? Could anything really be to the grieving heart? Can anything satisfy this broken world on a mission to blame and punish?

I believe any suffering, any pain, can be endured if only the sufferer were truly convinced of the realities of Justice, Redemption, and Love. That anything men or nature can do to us is a blink, a shiver, a hiccup that God has covered, because—here’s the reality—our lives were never about us. We were never MEANT to be comfortable. We were never MEANT to store treasures. We are meant to know our creator, to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable, to thrive in the wasteland, and we CAN. And our God IS good ALL the time, not because he “blesses” or protects all the time, but because he establishes justice. He exists as love. And he generates redemption.

It’s easy to say, “That’s easy for you to say,” but I wasn’t the first to say it. Jesus did before he suffered and died for us out of love, to allow justice to exist alongside mercy, and to facilitate our redemption. The apostles said it too and they were all brutally murdered for it. Peter was crucified UPSIDE-DOWN. Christians and, before they existed, God’s people, for centuries gladly proclaimed the name of God knowing that happiness and comfort were never their purpose and weren’t the goal.

To live is Christ. To die is gain. How we have FORGOTTEN! How we blame our creator for the mess we made of the world. How we cringe away from the monsters when he tells us to love them and to remind them they are men. The legions are many. They prowl like roaring lions, and yet, we only see what is clear to our eyes­—that men are evil, that people do wrong, and we don’t often enough ask “WHY?” “Where was the evil that corrupted their hearts and how will it be defeated?” Those answers, God does provide.

Justice is already served. Redemption is already in the works. Love is already here. It’s hard to see when we’re thrashing around a screwed-up world and trying to survive. That’s why I’m very thankful for the moments when he brings me out of the muck to look into his eyes and says to me, “Take heart, I have overcome the world.”