Again, this is something I wrote a year or so ago, but I haven't felt very creative lately, so I'll post it here instead of trying to come up with something original 🙂
I often hear non-Christians say:
“If God were so great why is there so much suffering in the world”
or
“I can’t imagine a loving God sending people to Hell”.
Well, I’ve been thinking about this argument a lot lately, and have come to some conclusions. So many people want a God that caters to their cravings. It’s like taking wanting a tomato to taste like raspberries. Quite often, people reject God’s existence simply because He doesn’t “taste” like they want Him to. But just because God doesn’t live up to YOUR expectations doesn’t mean that He's any less legitimate.
Yes, I hate that we live in a world full of sexual slavery, hunger, poverty, and pain. I don’t understand why some people go to Hell when they die. If I were God, I would have probably created a world where everyone poops rainbows and plays euchre all day. But that’s why I’m not God.
In my 20 years on this earth I have seen what seems like so much. I have seen so much hurt and evil in the world. I have seen young people commit suicide. I have seen diseases take lives far too early. I have seen famine, war, abuse, rape, slavery, murder, drugs rip families apart. In our lives, we see so much in our world, and our world seems so big to us.
But imagine, if you will, how infinitely small our time on this world is. Even if we live to be 100 and we travel the world, experiencing all there is to offer: from every hurting heart to every success story, our time here is such a small blip compared to the magnitude of God. The picture is so much bigger than we can even imagine, and we see such a small portion of it during our time here. No matter how messed up and wrong it may look to us, maybe we can just trust that the ONE who can see the full picture knows what He’s doing.
Like I said, if I were God, maybe I would do things differently, but just because God doesn’t do things my way doesn’t make Him any less real.
And it doesn’t make His plan any less perfect.
I serve a God that doesn’t change based on what I want Him to be. I serve a God who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I trust that His plan is beautiful and perfect in completion, and that He loves me enough to use my tiny, meaningless life for His good.
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." – Jeremiah 29:11
