On the Problem of Evil

My sister came to visit and bake Christmas cookies with me on Thursday. She and I are both fairly new to motherhood; myself in just 17 months, and her only 4 months with my baby niece. As we took a lunch break from our rigorous baking, she and I discussed  the rather extreme and irrational fears mothers have for their children. Everything from dreams to quick glimpses of dangers surrounding them at the park, the market, and the zoo. We agreed that although they are rather extreme and sometimes a plague, they have their place in helping us to identify dangers around our children that others may not see, enabling us to protect our little ones from harm.

The very next morning 20 children were shot to death in their elementary school in Connecticut, and an additional 22 children were slashed by knife, although not killed, in China.

I thought at first to not write about this. I fear giving any publicity to these monstrosities, for that is surely what the attackers desired. However, I have found for my own sense of sanity, I have to think these things through. I told my sister Andi on Wednesday that I have had to stop reading the news, for the fear it invokes in me for my son. However, with attacks such as these, to this extent and toward such a target as these attackers had, I must process through them. My husband is not on Facebook, and so the only news he heard of the shooting in Connecticut was the text he received from me, and what he caught on the radio during his 10-minute commute home. Last night I recounted to him the various details I had read throughout the day of the attack. I felt bad sharing with him such devastating news that he had been spared from throughout the day, but it made me realize something about myself--I must talk it through, lest it kill me inside.

"For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:7. I heard someone point out recently, concerning this verse, that fear is indeed a spirit, but not one we are subject to. Much like temptation, lust, anger, pride, jealousy, depression, and confusion, these are all things that we have put away with the old self.

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

We put away fear, for we belong to the One who has overcome all fear, and all evil which lies behind our fears. We overcome in Him!

"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? " 1 John 5:4-5

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?  He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?  Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;  who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.  Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,  nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " Romans 8:31-39

 

 

 This is what I wrote in my Gratitude Journal this morning:

 

"My children are safe. In a world of uncertainty and evil, they are protected in the hand of their Maker. At time this is not enough assurance for me. As a mother I want a complete guarantee of their safety and well-being; that no harm will befall them.This is my falter, my own lack of faith. Is He not big enough? Is He not able? Did He not love them first? Has He not already secured victory over evil? He is and He has. My children rest secure in His arms."

 

Evil surrounds us. Not because God is not caring; is not loving, as the world supposes. He is in actuality the very essence of love, seen in the sacrifice of His very own son, His only son, to redeem us out of this evil life and ultimately out of an eternity of unimaginable anguish. Why, then, would He allow 20 children to be shot to death? Why would He allow someone to slash 22 little boys and girls with a knife? Is He cruel, or simply distant? No, it shatters and tortures His own heart more than our own, for He created those little ones simply so He could know them and be near to them. God hates evil. Yet here it is, evil, right in front of us, and not only on the dark days of these attacks, but every single day.

 

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.  Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." Ephesians 6:10-12

 

 

God does not cause this evil, for He is only good. Evil is not His problem, it is ours. We welcomed it, we embraced it, and so we must suffer from its consequences. God is just, and so He will not simply "excuse" it, He must see its punishment through to make things right. God is also loving, and so He provided the one way--the only possible way--for us to escape the punishment of evil--He sent the only One Who could take the punishment away from us, placing it upon Himself, bearing our own penalty upon Himself--this is Jesus. He is just, He is loving, He is perfect.

 

In our finite minds, these atrocities are too much to wrap our heads around, and fear creeps in to consume us, fear of what we cannot control. I rest secure only in the truth that Christ has conquered, and He is the One who created and loves my children more than I will ever fathom, far more perfectly than I will ever be capable of loving them. I cannot claim to completely understand, but knowing God's love is enough. His love is sufficient, and in it--in Him--I rest secure.