I See No Evil

A couple of weeks ago, I heard two people on the radio engaged in the old debate on the existence of God despite the existence of evil. On one side, an agnostic professor said that a loving, omnipotent God cannot exist. He believes a loving God would destroy evil and stop suffering, and if God is omnipotent, He obviously would have the power to do this. On the other side, the Christian said that without evil, pain, and suffering, you cannot have good. Nothing makes me more hostile than someone who is supposed to represent my side of an argument that doesn't know what they are talking about. We all probably know people who are angry with God over some personal pain or loss like the death of loved ones, disease, or disaster. Now, I'm not a schooled theologian or a pastor. Heck, I don't even go to church that often. But I do occasionally pray, read the Bible, and sing hymns. I may not be the most qualified to settle this issue, but I do write the Truth on occasion. Of course, there is plenty of pain and suffering in this world. I used to work with a guy whose mother died of cancer when he was about 12 years old. She wasted away for years doing chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She suffered. She died. That's a pretty rough thing for a child to experience. Now, this lady was a Christian and told her kids should pray that she gets well. When she didn't get well, she said God was calling her home. After telling me all this, my coworker said to me, "I refuse to worship a God that would take away someone's parent like that." You see, he prayed for the health and the life of his mother. God answered no, and he hates God for it. My first (unspoken) thought was, "Who the hell are you to hate God for this?" I remember a story (they later made it into a movie) about a man who was born and lived without sin. He lived the only holy life ever on this earth. He was in fact God's only begotton son. Surely, God in the flesh, living without sin, wasn't subject to death and suffering. Or did he actually die in one of the most cruel and humiliating methods of death man has ever devised? I recommend you watch the Passion of the Christ to get a visual answer to that question. So, if God's only son suffered this way, what gives us the right to hate or deny God for cancer? Or any other thing we call evil. When we talk about evil, we talk about pain and death. People die by the millions for an endless list of reasons. Let's take the ultimate example of suffering and evil in the twentieth century: the Holocaust. Millions of people suffered and died in cruel and unspeakable ways. Here are God's chosen people being singled out and exterminated by the Nazis, and does God put an end to it? The agnositc says no, humanity allied against this evil ended it. While I see the hand of God in the Allied victory, I will accept the argument that it was not God. This must prove that He either doesn't love us or doesn't have the power to help us, right? The problem with sinners explaining the ways of God is that we only do it from our perspective. We say that the pain, suffering, and death in this world are evil. When we try to see this world from God's eternal perspective, we begin to understand the solution to this problem. It is not that God doesn't love us. It is not that God can't help us. It is not that God needs evil to distinguish Himself as good. It is to give us the only choice that matters in the world. Imagine that you go outside on a cold morning. You breathe in some fresh cold air and let it out. Have you ever looked at your breath? As it leaves your mouth, it rises and swirls for just a brief moment, then it just goes away. The molecules that left your lungs still exist, but they have ascended into the atmosphere. That breath has left you and disappeared in an instant. You have just seen your life. It is a vapor. We are on this world very briefly, then we go away. But our soul lives on forever. Now, consider this: Does it matter how long that vapor lasts? Or what that vapor does? When we breathe on a cold, windy day, that vapor is very short and very violent. That vapor is tossed and turned on itself then it ends, as all vapors must. So, no matter what afflictions or sufferings we have on this earth, it will all pass. It will all pass very quickly, in fact. Take the very worst event you can imagine. Let's say the superflu kills 99% of the world's population. That's billions of people who suffer and die in a single event. When you consider that everyone will die regardless of how hard we fight to extend our vapor, is it really "evil" to let it dissipate? Would it shock you if your breath actively struggled to persist? Or would you laugh at its futility of spending its whole existence trying to prolong itself for just another microsecond? Suffering is short and death comes for us all. God understands this more than we do. After all, He is the one who is breathing in the cold wind. He sees life for what it is. Can you imagine your breath trying to understand you? It was warm and happy in your lungs, then you turned it out into the harsh, cold world all by itself. It is being torn apart by the wind. Sleet or snow may punch right through it. Imagine how angry and bitter it must feel. Does your breath hate you? If it did, would you be offended? If your breath loved you, would you love it back? Probably not. That's what makes God so different from us. We are so insignificant, yet he loves us so much. Earlier I said pain and suffering must be so that we can make the one choice that matters in this world. Remember that perfect man I mentioned who suffered and died? There was a reason for that. It was for you. You see, when Jesus' vapor dissipated, Jesus came back. He came back so you also could return to God's warm loving lungs. Without accepting Jesus as your savior, you are scattered molecules that will forever be apart from God. In fact, you will find the atmosphere to be quite hot and painful for all eternity. Don't damn yourself to an eternity of fire just because someone you love suffered through cancer treatments for three years. Even if you lived a thousand years suffering this world's worst tortures, it would be nothing compared to your first day of hell. In conclusion, I must say that I see no evil in this world's death and suffering. It is just how things are. The real evil is what comes between us and God. The things that result in souls rejecting God. That is the work of the adversary, Satan. So my message to the agnostic professor is this: you will regret working your whole life to come between people and God when you finally realize that your life is an insignifcant vapor.