“Why does God let this happen?”
These are words that started echoing in my mind during month 3 in Thailand. It is difficult to look at all the injustice in this world and still believe that God is loving and that God is good. Its something that I kind of always just accepted in the past. I knew I would never understand all of God’s ways and I was okay with that. Its not like I never saw injustice before coming on the race. I went to school with kids who would have gone hungry if not for free lunches. I had friends whose parents were abusive. I’ve counseled teenage girls who’ve been sexually assaulted. I’ve worked with women who were trafficked, homeless men, a community torn up with drugs. Once I held a child in my arms and pretended not to notice the cigarette burns on the back of her neck. All in the United States of America.
I struggled with this throughout months 3 and 4, and then I visited the Killing Fields in Cambodia.
In the 1970s, millions of Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rogue. For every 4 people in the country one was killed. Families were torn apart, people were beaten, women raped. Young children and babies were held by the ankles and thrown against a tree, their heads smashed. Lifeless bodies were thrown into pits forming mass graves. All under the cover of darkness and loud music.
I stood on the ground where these things happened. I stood in the shade of the Killing Tree. I stepped over fragments of bone that rise to the surface during the rainy season. I stood there and I said, “Father I do not understand.”
“The things that happened here are a result of choices that were made by humankind. Choices that were made in the freedom that I have given you.”
Wrap your minds around that. God gave us the freedom to make choices. He has given us the freedom to treat one another kindly, or to murder one another. He has given us the option to know him and love him for eternity, and with that he has given us the option of discarding him for eternity. Wow. Why in the world would God trust us with so much power? The only answer I hear is: HOPE. God created us in his image. We reflect him in so many ways, even those of us who do not believe in God still reflect him.
He gives us free will because he does not want us to function like machines. He wants love from us. He wants us to want him. He has hope in us. He has hope, and believes in us. He believes that we will choose love and choose him. God believes in us.
