The Lost Boys of Sudan walked 1,000 miles, a trek of over 3 months, fleeing a Moslem military that had executed many of their parents and immediate family members, raped their female relatives and enslaved others. They started this death march as 5 – 13 year olds, with no preparation, no food or water. 13 year old boys buried the children that died along the way. Why does God allow this?
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 5 million people have died, 95% of all women and girls ages 10-90 years of age in the war zone have been raped. The story never appears on American news channels and God does not seem to care either. Why?
God seems to be giving us what we asked for: a world where he is absent and unnecessary.
Remember the story of Adam and Eve? They ate the "forbidden fruit." That fruit was the idea that there's something more important in life than God himself. For Adam and Eve, this entailed the hope that they could become like God, without God.
They consumed the notion that there was something more valuable in existence than God himself, something no more valuable than having a personal relationship with God. And their story is the story of all of us, isn't it? Who hasn't said--if not audibly at least in their hearts -- "God, I think I can do this without you. I'll just go this one alone. But thanks for the offer".
We've all tried to make life work without God. Why do we do that? Probably because we've all bought the notion that there's something more valuable, more important, than God. For different people it's different things, but the mindset is the same: "God isn't what's most important in life. In fact, I'd just as soon do it without him altogether."
Maybe God has this funny idea that we should value him above all persons and all things and even above ourselves. Then, because we don't, maybe he steps out of the picture, to an extent. Maybe he says, in effect, "Okay, you don't want me around, so I'm out of here. But your world will not be the same without me."
Maybe that explains the world we live in--a system that isn't God's intention, a system without God. In the Bible, God told Adam and Eve what such a system would look like: "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. ...By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." (Genesis 3.17, 19)
The reality is that life is painful. Life is difficult. Horrible things happen to people all the time. We have to work to survive. Rather than working for pleasure, we work out of necessity, in order to feed ourselves and our families. We die. Whether it's at 7, 17, 67 or 100, we all die. No one escapes death.
So that's the system we live in: pain, having to work to survive, then death. So what's the big deal? Why is that kind of a world such a problem?
That kind of a world is a problem because we can imagine a much better world. The Bible says that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men" (Ecclesiastes 3.11). We know, in our hearts, what a better world would look like. We dream of a better world, a more perfect world, a peaceful, war free world….we dream and long for what we once had in Eden.
If we were merely products of random chance plus time, then we wouldn't conceive of a better world --"You work hard. You endure pain. Then you die. That's life." But we don't say that in our minds. Because we know better. We know that a world free of death, pain, and survival-labor is actually possible. (That's why we ridicule God for not providing that better world right now.)
But God has left us in this world. Why? Maybe so that we would see the need for him. Maybe he's put us in this world, in this system, to show us what a world is like without him at the helm. Pretty awful.
But many of us try to make the system work in spite of its flaws. We tough it out. We work hard. We endure the pain. Then we face death courageously or with indifference--even though the world in which we currently live is the great calling card that lets us know there's something very wrong with this world.
And we are left longing for Eden…..for something that we once knew….a perfect world where the lion layed down with the lamb, a place where everyone and everything co-existed in peace and God walked with men on a daily basis. A world where God was valued instead of marginalized.
This is the difference that people experience in their lives when they “re-value” God. When they re-evaluate their priorities and make God primary in their lives. It restores the personal life, gives hope, and makes living an eternal experience instead of a fatal eventuality.
I recommend the Christian life. (Not the “go to church on Sunday and live like hell on Monday” variety.) It brings hope to a hopeless place, life to great difficulty, and joy…..sometimes in the midst of great sorrow.
