I try my hardest not to listen to the 11:00 News. Instead I listen to the 3 minute reports on the radio, they have less time to recount the gruesome details of all the inhumanity of the world. Hearing about child abuse, neglect, murder, drugs, crimes, and war make me sick to my stomach. I learn of all the hate and evil in the world and I always think, what is going on with our world? Many think if there is a God then why would he allow such cruelty, evil, and hatred to exist?
The only answer I can find is free will. God created us in his image to love him and one another freely. If we were forced to love then it could not be authentic love. So what happens when people don’t love? They pass that on to their children through learned hate and cruelty? Then it just gets worse and worse. But what happens when people choose to love freely? They pass it on to their children and everyone they meet. If God controlled us then we could not truly love. One must have freedom to choose love.
I believe God gives us free will and to a certain extent we are just bumping into one another in our world. However, when we discover love, God, in our lives everything changes and we can pass on that love to others. Maybe God doesn’t change the evil but his existence helps us beat the evil in our own lives. God’s presence is what gets people through the damage that evil causes in this world. I do believe in miracles. If enough prayers are said with contrite sincerity I believe that God may change a situation. But 99% of the time God maintains that free will is ours. God may allow bad things to happen to good people but that is part of the downfall of real freedom. Let’s not forget that God is still there to lean on when the bad occurs and love is needed. Whether bad or good is happening God is still present.
So if we love God and acknowledge him more will he protect us more than those who don’t believe? I think the closer we become to God the more we learn to love and the more we love the more we separate ourselves from those who are evil in the world and hopefully the more distant we become from it. However, that doesn’t always happen with disease, death, and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess we just have to trust that God is with us through it all the good, the bad and the evil. We must also believe that love will always win out in the end. If we let love rule our thoughts and attitudes then evil will not be able to penetrate our souls and will never truly take over. We will overcome with God on our side. Why does God let things happen? Because he loves us enough to give us free will to love him or not.
