The Face of Evil

Have you lost someone that meant more to you than anyone else in the world? Or perhaps you had the perfect job, a lovely family, hope and boundless optimism. You all thought it would last forever; heaven on earth.

Then you received the phone call that the third Tuesday of August. Your son, the captain of the football team collapsed on the field, and died. Perhaps your stock broker called you in July and told you that all your investments had been lost-everything gone.

Why was this happening to you? You tried to live according to the golden rule. You gave to charities. You never sold clients shady deals or or tried to cheat anyone. You went to all your kids' programs and often bought your wife flowers "just because."

How could a "good" God, assuming there is a God, how could he let these bad things happen to a good person like you? Where is God when everything is falling apart around you?

But wait a minute--how do you know that these things are "bad?" To assume these tragedies, and they are, are "bad," is to assume an infinite good. How is it that humans long for "good things" to happen to our families and all the people we know and love?

The truth is that God is good. He created the entire universe with a divine plan: to have relationship with each person He ever would create. He created the world and saw what He made and "It was very good." (Genesis 1 and 2) God created man to care for the earth He made. He created man with the freedom to choose God, and with that freedom mankind chose: to disobey God and suffer the consequences of that action: sin. A free choice, however leaves the possibility of a wrong choice.*

So why didn't God just make us incapable of choosing evil? Wouldn't that have saved the world the effects of a thousand wars and million famines?

Yes, He could have-God is all-powerful, but He wanted more than puppets for companions. Man chose disobedience and evil entered. Yet, keep these things in mind: If God is all-good, He can and will defeat evil. Evil still exists, and God has promised to restore the earth and defeat evil.**

"For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears....Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."***

*"Who Made God? and Answers to 100 Tough Questions of Faith." Zacharias, Ravi and Norman Geisler. Zondervan, 2003.
**"Who Made God? and Answers to 100 Tough Questions of Faith." Zacharias, Ravi and Norman Geisler. Zondervan, 2003.
***Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 13: 9, 12