I hate suffering. And I'm not too fond of pain, either. Try as I might, though, I have failed miserably in all my desperate attempts to eradicate these two ugly twins from my life. No matter how hard I try to create a paradise for myself, Hell always seems to come and crash my party.
And not just my party. In fact, it is disturbingly obvious to just about everyone that Hell is doing a thriving business here on Planet Earth. For those of us who are Christians trying to evangelize our unsaved neighbors, these daily outbreaks of wanton destruction makes it very difficult for us to try and persuade our local pagans to abandon their favorite sins and instead pledge their sober allegiance to this Jehovah God of ours who continues to allow so much horrific harm to continue unabated in this dreadful world in which we live.
If God is so good, how come He seems so cruel? If He is all good and all powerful, then why does He continue to allow innocent people to suffer so terribly? If God is Love and has all power as we Christians say, then how come He doesn't stop all the screaming and the dying?
Well, I wish I could say it's going to get better in the near future, but it's not. In fact, many prominent prophetic voices of our day are giving this message to the church: "prepare to suffer." As for the secular media, the stream of bad news is never-ending, and even to the casual observer the problems facing all human beings everywhere are steadily mounting, with no obvious or immediate solutions to diffuse an ever-growing mountain of coming catastrophes.
So is there any reasonable defense for this Christian God of ours who seems to just stand by while the world's pain continues to rise into a frightening crescendo of ever-increasing screams? Well, I believe there is. Even though I have endured much suffering in my own life, I add my own testimony that God is good and He is worthy of your love, trust and yes, even your worship.
