I have a friend in the States who was recently asked the following questions:
How can God be loving when it’s probable that 5 billion people living on the Earth at this very moment are doomed for Hell? How can God be loving when there are children starving?
After spending almost a year in various cultures, economically-diverse communities, and with people possessing an assortment of physical, mental, and emotional ailments, I must ask myself the very same questions, knowing that this year has greatly influenced my answers, as well as how I relate to God on difficult issues such as these. Below is the response I emailed to my friend:
a) Yes, I have seen tons of men, women, and children, who live in absolute poverty, who live in despair and uncertainty, who suffer the consequences of other men’s (oftentimes Westerners’) actions. It has actually been interesting to see the way they live their lives, so different from our view of “success” and more in the mode of daily survival. It is also interesting to see more passion, more hope, and oftentimes more trust in the Lord’s provision. But seeing them or not seeing them does not change God’s goodness. Knowing about them and their conditions from a distance or seeing them face-to-face does not change their condition or the fact that God desperately desires change. But when God sees them, He does not see their condition, He does not see their income, status, sickness, or environment. Those are merely external, physical circumstances. Instead, God sees their heart, and He desires their hearts to be His in the midst of their conditions, just as He desires the hearts of the businessmen on Wall Street or the Hollywood celebrities. I know that sounds harsh to say “What happens to them physically doesn’t matter because God sees the internal,” but that’s not what I’m saying at all. He does see their conditions and He does hate sin and the pain that it causes His children. But because He is righteous and just, He won’t just magically take away everything that we have done, sin and evil, and make things better – and here you come into the issue of free will. The crime, then, is not why does a good and loving God allow evil to exist, but what do we do with the evil before us? How can we see such suffering and sit back and do nothing?
b) Which leads me to my second thought: you made the point that poverty, starvation, and disease are the result of thousands of years of human sin, which is true. But just as humans brought sin into the world and are now facing the consequences of those sins, it is also up to humans to fight against sin and evil. You say God is moving and God cares, but He uses us and relies on us to be that change, to bring hope and life. God is loving and God is sovereign because although He does not directly send manna down from heaven to feed the starving children, He does give us hands and feet and food and money in order to be His hands and feet. So to those who believe and pray for those who have no voice, and for others who do not believe but see the suffering that exists in the world I ask, “What are you doing about it?” Don’t expect God to bring change and then sit back and drink a latte waiting for Him to do it: go out into the world (or into your street) and do whatever you can to show His love, whether through a word, a gesture, a muffin, a blanket, etc.
There’s that story we’ve all heard about the starfish – there was a beach covered as far as you could see with starfish washed on the shore, dying, and a little boy was picking them up, one by one, throwing them back into the ocean. A man saw him doing this and told him that he couldn’t make a difference in getting all the starfish back into the ocean, that his efforts didn’t matter. The boy replied, “It mattered to that one.”
My point is, no matter how big or how small the act, showing the love of Christ and doing whatever you can to fight against poverty, sickness, starvation, racism, hatred, etc. is every human’s responsibility, and it DOES make a difference.
There’s that story we’ve all heard about the starfish – there was a beach covered as far as you could see with starfish washed on the shore, dying, and a little boy was picking them up, one by one, throwing them back into the ocean. A man saw him doing this and told him that he couldn’t make a difference in getting all the starfish back into the ocean, that his efforts didn’t matter. The boy replied, “It mattered to that one.”
My point is, no matter how big or how small the act, showing the love of Christ and doing whatever you can to fight against poverty, sickness, starvation, racism, hatred, etc. is every human’s responsibility, and it DOES make a difference.
c) You don’t have to go to the ends of the earth to see people who are hurting, suffering, dying in order to question God’s goodness in that. They are hurting, suffering, and dying in America as well, in your city and your neighborhood, even when you don’t see them. You can make a difference wherever you are and “be the change you wish to see in the world” (Ghandi). I read Proverbs 3 today, and stumbled across verse 27, which reads “Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.” ALL people deserve to receive good – rich, poor, healthy, sick – and maybe it is not in your power to go to Africa, but you can act in your street or do whatever it is in your power to do to give out goodness and love. And of course, you can always pray for those men, women, and children around the world. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul describes how he prayed for the church in Rome, he longed to see them and he sent instruction and encouragement to them – but he had never met them! Just because you have never met someone or see their condition does not exclude you from having compassion and interceding for them.
d) It’s easy to slip into a life of comfort and assume that because we are comfortable and for the most part enjoying life, that everyone around us must be doing pretty well, too. Even in walking the streets and seeing those in need, it becomes easy to pass them by, assuming that what I can offer will not make a difference to them, or that someone else will do it. This (apathy/indifference) is one of my greatest fears about my life, and I as a believer have to turn to James 2 to remind me that I am constantly working out my faith by what I do. But while you may not always have the answers to explain God (because can you really ever explain God?), you have the power to act and to challenge those around you to act. And as you begin to bring life and goodness and hope and kingdom, you see the goodness and the love of God even more in the world around you, and also in yourself. The enemy wants you to feel defeated, because if you feel defeated you will be less likely to fight. Pray. Pray. Pray. But in your prayers of faith, in your trusting God to move, remember also that “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2).
I’m a New Yorker!
Fear’s my life!
Look – I find some of what you teach suspect
Because I’m used to relying on intellect
But I try to open up to what I don’t know
