In response to yesterday’s Catch, someone wrote in the following. As I was reading these words, an answer came that I believe is important enough to share with everyone, because we all have these recurring questions all the time as we view so much evil and injustice in the world. Suddenly I saw this as not a simple answer, but an all-encompassing one.
God, where were you when the little girl was padlocked in a cooler and left to die in there while the adults left in her charge sat in lawn chairs drinking?
God, where were you when Jacee Dugard was being raped night after night by a religious nut?
God, where are you when the innocent are victimized?
I believe there is an answer to these very difficult questions.
God was on a cross, reconciling these very victims to himself through his own bitter death — a death that reaches into time and eternity and forgives perpetrator and victim alike. Christ’s death is not a thing of the past; it is actively reaching across all time and paying the price for everyone. I believe the very horrible acts listed here were laid upon Christ.
Where was God when these things were happening? He was right there, closer than anyone ever would want to know.
And God goes on reconciling the world to himself through Christ on the cross, and the resurrection that follows.
John Fischer The Catch 
I’m not sure that is enough, at least to the one suffering. But we can give an endless list of “where was God” and the answers point to a God with his hands tied. He created a world that for all the good there is evil in every shadow. If I am watching a child abused I step in. It would be nice if God could instead. He knows when a sparrow falls and the number of hairs on my head, all useless information. Does he know the number of hairs on the heads of the people in Somalia? What good has that done for them? We learn that God loves us all and when he gets sick enough of what he created he is going to euthanize the bad ones. He should kill us all now, it would be much more compassionate than starving people to death.
To “kill us all now” would certainly make things simpler for followers of Christ to shirk our responsibility of being the ‘hands and feet” of Jesus to the desperate and dying.
Fairly certain that’s not what our Lord had or has in mind…
We are certainly the hands and feet of Christ, but it is not enough. If he is with starving children what does that mean in a practical sense? Every year 15 million children die of hunger. It’s not that I think John’s answer is wrong, I just am not sure what good it does.
Most Christians respond to needs they are presented with with the best of their ability working to be the hands and feet of Christ, but we can’t fix it all and apparently neither can God. So he is with us, okay, and while I was sitting here thinking about all this 30 to 40 children died of starvation. Believing God is there doesn’t rest my soul or comfort me.
We need to keep in mind that there is an eternity ahead of us. This little time span is just a speck. He will recompense each one according to their deeds. The ones that are abused now will be gaining more than we can ever imagine. We serve a living God that takes all things into account and will settle that account in the future. He is just.
One of our mistaken tendencies – both as humans and often as Christians – is to make God out to be some sort of ethereal or surreal being who may be aware of (and even concerned about) painful situations for which he seems reluctant or hesitant to intercede.
Because we don’t have easy or ‘rational’ answers we may offer up explanations which really explain nothing but rather are weak excuses or spiritualized apologetics on God’s behalf. They are equally dissatisfying and, yet, we expect people to be ‘okay’ with it.
Here’s something to consider:
While God is indeed present with the suffering and dying, I believe He is there in more than just Spirit. He has put into the hearts of men the knowledge of good and evil, of right and wrong, of misanthropy and mercy, and His Spirit convicts Christian and non-believer alike. Therefore, He is present in the minds, hearts, hands and feet of people who are capable of acting iimmediately to stem the flow of injustice regardless of their affiliation with or acknowledgement of Him or His church. The problem is that they (and we) are human and too often allow fear, prejudice, greed, peer-pressure, or other argument dissuade us from acting upon the God-initiated desire to love and help.
However, the fact that we express compassion, disillusionment and frustration when we view these dire images, in a sense, mirrors what I believe to be God’s ‘disappointment’ – with us.
If we are moved by what we see and hear then we need to move and be more than just ‘hearers of the word’ or watchers of the television screen.
Sitting around wondering why God isn’t doing something is an impractical exercise in futility.
We may not be able to save the 30-40 children who starved to death just now but is that an appropriate excuse not to get off our butts and start doing something now to avert the future ‘sacrifice’ of thousands more children, abuse victims, or others whom are tormented?
God is there and He’s asking us to come join Him.
Good answer, John. God is there all the time. He is showing us the bad so we can choose the good. He is allowing things to happen in our lives to show us how good He is. Yes, God is there all the time.
Thanks for the reminder John…I just pray and cry out that God would bring it all to an end…Lord Jesus come quickly…it seems like all the good we do is just not enough in admidst the evil….step by step, moment by moment…I will follow Him…
Good response. God was and is there, in Christ. And, what do the other world views offer in response to that question? What does the Darwinian answer? “Well, that abused child is among the weak and is to be eliminated for the good of the race and the improvement of the gene pool. It’s about natural selection, the survival of the fittest. The race demands that that family not go on through its children, but be eliminated for the good of the race.” Or the world view of chance and probabilities: “Well, it was just the roll of the dice. Bad luck. Probabilities tell us that most children don’t face those abuses so the race goes on.” No comfort these; no sense, no transcendent purpose. Your answer won’t satisfy the one in pain, but your answer is better than any other and we have to have some answer; everyone gives an answer to evil, even if their answer is to self medicate with drug or drink or denial. Thanks John. See you in October. Tim O
great response John! i needed to be reminded that God is not far off watching this world, but is closer than we can imagine.
Indeed, God was there, but I think he was more than just there. Elie Wiesel in his book (Night, p. 61f) tells the story of watching a young child struggling for breath at the end of a rope on a gallows in the Nazi death camps. Then too, the question was asked “Where is God now?” and the answer is “He is there at the end of the rope on the gallows.”
To say that God is there is true, but not true enough. He is not just there watching as we often and easily imagine, but God is there experiencing the pain of the victim in every excruciating detail. “Whatever you do for the least of these you do for me.” The cup of cold water is not unrewarded, but neither is the trauma of abuse simply absorbed and forgotten. The price of forgiveness is the life of the Creator Who is Love. I would not want to be in the shoes of the one who raped the Creator of the Universe, Who is also the Creator of the perpetrator of the abuse, and yet I have to ask myself how often have I done just that an all kinds of ways?
“God be merciful to me, a sinner!”
I like your response and I may have to concede that this is the way to look at these tough issues. I just don’t find much comfort in it.
I don’t think it is meant to provide comfort, but an amazing sense of how far the love of God will go to reach someone.
YES!
What we often fail to recognize is the gift we have of free will. We are free to build, to love, to learn – but we are also free to hate, destroy, and remain ignorant. It is this gift which separates us from the angels. Would we be prepared to give up this gift?
Yes Dan, that is the whole point. and God, in order to maintain our free will has covered for all our bad choices on the cross, which we can exercise our free will and reject if we so choose.
Yes, God is omnipresent,He is omniscient and omnipotent. He is everywhere,He is all-knowing and all powerful, with all these attributes, readers, am sure should have loved to know, with biblical backing, why He allowed these evils to happen and why He did not intervene. John, that is a big issue you have touched, and our consolation is that God does no evil and without evil doers, the death of Jesus Christ should have been unnecessary. And sin is sin and we are all guilty. Am a sinner saved by grace.
See my comments to Dan Bagan…
Your answer is profound. It moves me because I may not be perpetuating these awful crimes but I have sinned and found forgiveness. And God has forgiveness that runs as deep as the most awful sins. My view of sorrow and pain is so small. I don’t see all the sides God does. It comes back to trusting Him like a little child. I believe He is wiser, bigger, all knowing, so full of love. So I can trust Him with the darkness as well as the light.
“Jesus wept.” The shortest sentence in the Bilbe, but to me, one that provides great insight. As John said – God is there when these horrible things happen, close enough to feel their pain. I am certain he weeps over the harm we cause one another. He never promised everything would be easy and joyful. He promised He would never leave us. He promised to use all things to achive His plan. We are the ones who fail and inflict pain.We sit here and think we are better than the murderer or rapist – but how many spirits have we permanently damaged with our words and actions? We are called to do what we can, when we can. We may not change the whole world, but we can change someone’s world. And just doing that helps keep some of the evil at bay. Remember evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
I’ve never been sure if Jesus wept because he was human or because he was God.
Probably both.
I am often knocked out by your work, John, but this thought that was given to you — it reaches
me like no other column of yours. Not only is Jesus’ suffering and death always
happening in the present tense, but so is His resurrection, I believe.