"Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" -Job 38:2
"Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?" -Job 40:8
One of the most common arguments I have heard for both the non-existence of God and for His lack of sovereign control over events is the evils that happen in the world. Young lives are tragically ended, wars and disease rage over the earth, and wicked men prosper.
Last night Sarah and I watched the conclusion of the movie version of Leo Tolstoy's great work "War and Peace." Toward the end Pierre is speaking with his friend Natasha. She has suffered the loss of family fortune, and the loss of both her younger brother and her beloved fiance. War has ravaged their lands. Pierre has returned from being unjustly imprisoned, nearly executed, and marched through the freezing wilderness, watching his fellow prisoners dying all around him. And yet Pierre has found an inner peace beyond any he had known before. Through all of this, he makes the statement (paraphrase) "God is in control of all these things."
"But why[do they happen]?" returns Natasha, to which Pierre gives the answer, "I do not know, but I do know that if it were not so [that God were in control], life would be unbearable."
Job suffered even greater and real loss. Every material possession, his family, and even his health deserted him. In the depths of despair he asks God why, but he never gets a direct answer to his question. Instead he is made to understand the majesty and power of God, and in the end he has faith, and is comforted.
When we don't understand we question God. Our pride pits our intellect against His, imagining that we have a right to an explanation that we could never understand. When we suffer and see evil, we want answers, but what we really need is faith that God is in control, which will bring comfort beyond any explanation.
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:9
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
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