The older I get, the more I have learned: you cannot explain away the problem of evil. You can ignore it, or theologize it, or a gazillion other things—but you can’t come up with a solution that pleases everyone. In my own life and in the private hurts I know about in the lives of others, I have asked God so many times, “If you’re good, why do you allow these things?”
Thankfully, God has protected me from being an agnostic or atheist. Plenty of people have wrestled with the problem of evil and eventually thrown in the towel. But instead of letting God win, they let their own doubts or intellect get the victory. God has also protected me from thinking God would love to stop things, but he is too weak or too removed from his creation to do so. That would be the easiest route to take as a Christian, but it isn’t very assuring, neither personally nor theologically. In the fight to figure out how God works through ways we would never choose, my intellect or doubts haven’t won. God wins.
What then? By God’s grace, I have learned that Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28 don’t just apply when you get a raise or new job or new car. They apply in the midst of heartaches that don’t get healed, questions that don’t get answered, and theological tensions that don’t get resolved. What has been the impact?
When I leave my house each day, I know that it might be the last time I see my wife and six kids. I don’t harp on it for fear of sounding too morbid (or try not to anyway), but 31 years later, I know that in a split, unplanned second, a normal day can change the rest of your life and the lives of many others.
When I preach, I don’t (or try not to) give my opinions, agendas, or hobby horses. When I preach, I drive home: “You’re gonna die, you’re gonna face God, it’ll be too late to prepare, are you ready now?” When I counsel, I try not to talk a whole lot. I try to listen. And if I don’t know the answers, I don’t make anything up. I have no problem saying, “I don’t know either.”
And when I am alone and thinking, I realize that of all the paths my life could have taken, God made the map and the route. I’m not on this earth to make money, though I would love as much of it as that would come my way. I’m not on this earth to be an academic, though the thought of graduation soon is so bittersweet that I wish I could somehow stay in school the rest of my life. I’m not on this earth to be a famous “greatly used” pastor, because if that were the case, the pieces of that puzzle that “launch ministries” would have been put in place. Plus, God would have made me a fast reader instead of a slow one and a smooth talker instead of a slight stutterer.
If your mind struggles with the problem of evil, be thankful it is a problem for you. It’s a problem because God has put it in your heart that things aren’t going to always be this way. The longing for something better in the midst of all sorts of evil isn’t the unpardonable sin. It’s a proof that you’re made in the image of God. Because who else has a greater desire that things one day be made right than God himself?
Thankfully, God doesn’t just desire for things to be made right but he has orchestrated that they will. How will they one day be made right? Jesus. He’s the one whose life faced more unjustified evil than we can ever imagine. And for him, evil wasn’t an unanswerable problem—it was planned. And instead of running from it, he was born into it. And instead of being forever crushed by it, he conquered over it.
So while man writes headlines that say “Dispute ends in tragedy” and “Child finds mother on floor after shooting,” because of Genesis 50:20 and Romans 8:28, we can read by faith, “Dispute results in tragedy, but tragedy wasn’t the end” and “Child found mother on floor after shooting, but will one day find mother in heaven after resurrection.”
The puzzle pieces of God’s providence sometimes have straight lines and right angles… but most of the time they are jagged edges that by themselves don’t seem to fit anywhere. So Christian, until the puzzle of providence is finished, when problems in your life look puzzling, remember that if God made the puzzle and cut out in advance the shapes of each piece, he doesn’t have any problem seeing the bigger picture that he designed you to be a part of.
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