If you were to ask people why they don’t believe in God, many would say they can’t get behind the concept of a “loving God” who allows such suffering on this earth. If He is in control, why can’t He stop kids from getting cancer or the suffering of billions of “good” people? Even darker, does God ORDAIN suffering? Does He see people’s sin and wreak havoc on their lives as punishment? Need we fear a God whose wrath can be invoked by us simply being human? Did He create us human and blind, only to then punish us for our humanity and blindness? Thinking of God like that, paints Him in the image of MAN, instead of the reverse…
In Psalm 49:4, David says that he “unriddles” himself by writing and playing music. It seems that I unriddle myself by writing in my journal. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the unanswered questions…
“Why did God allow me to believe lies about Him?”
“How could He allow so much pain and confusion to occur in my family, when we were in full-time ministry?”
“If He is in control, why does He allow SO MUCH SUFFERING in the world?”
Usually, the generic answer most Christians will give you is: “We live in a fallen world.” But, what does that really mean? So I started writing, with no clear direction, just questions that needed untangling. I think I may be on to something…
Imagine the first reality, The Beginning. God speaks and all of His Imagination, creativity, and adventurous Spirit lets loose and everything is spoken into existence. The Heavens come to life. At some point, the fall of Lucifer had to have occurred somewhere in this time frame, because by the time God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there had to have been evil in the first place. So the great fall of Lucifer had to have already happened for a serpent to be sneaking around Eden.
Then, God creates man. Let’s be clear. God did not create humans as fallible. He made Adam and Eve PERFECT. They knew nothing but pure joy, love and adventure. They fellowshipped with their Creator with no shame, fear or sadness. They only knew good. THAT was His design. So, why create the tree, God? Why even give humans a choice? Unless, the story had already been written…and finished.
What if this whole experience of life on planet earth as we know it now is all just an epic battle of Good and Evil? The prize? US. When God cast Lucifer out of Heaven, He could have immediately destroyed and sent him to Hell. But He didn’t. He wrote a story, and instead decided to give Lucifer His wish, and let him play God in his own kingdom called earth. The rules? First, humans would not be created evil. God would not just condemn His creation from the start. Lucifer would get his chance to deceive humanity, just as he did 1/3 of the angels in Heaven. Interestingly, Lucifer used the same exact thought process that corrupted HIM. He tempted Eve by telling her she would be like God if she ate the forbidden fruit.
The Heavens, angels and demons all held their breath as Eve decided. As she bit into the fruit, she was given the knowledge of evil. Lucifer’s first victory…or was it? God didn’t seem to disturbed. Why? He already wrote this story. As broken hearted as God was that His creation disobeyed Him, He had already written the ending to this story. When Adam and Eve disobeyed, they essentially hit PLAY, and a new age began.
Lucifer would get his wish and be the fallen god of his fallen world.He must have thought his power really was stronger than God’s.
He keeps underestimating his Creator.
God didn’t give Lucifer very much time to gloat in his supposed victory. After discovering Adam and Eve hiding in shame, He spoke to Lucifer first. He told him that someday, (not right away, he would be given his time to reign.) Someone was coming for him who would crush his head. (Genesis 1:14-15) On that day, God would not fully destroy Lucifer, but He would almost do better. he would destroy the power of sin…which would now hold humanity in bondage. In the meantime, God would have a seat.
Another rule was that Lucifer could not kill humans. People would be born believing they were created fallen, and their memories of their Heavenly Father would be wiped clean. They would now have a sin-nature instilled at birth, and would experience physical death. God graciously gave his enemy a huge advantage. It’s like a mother giving her 5 year old a generous head start in a race.
What God knew that Lucifer could not, is that Good is so much stronger than evil. Despite the enemy’s advantage of humanity’s sin-nature, God would find a way to pursue people, speak to them, and give them the opportunity to be made right again. Those moments would be like humans awakening from a dark dream…they would feel as though darkness was their reality, and Light was harder to find. God spoke and showed up to people in real form, all over the Old Testament.
When they had these experiences, He asked them to believe. He gave them ways to atone for their fallen nature. Through rituals, sacrifices and the law, they could once again have fellowship with their Creator. He began to whisper promises to shepherds, kings, slaves and prophets of a coming Savior…One who would make a way for complete reconciliation with Him. This would be the biggest and most final sacrifice, resulting in a human spirit irreversibly becoming ONE with their Creator. Moses, Abraham, David, Joseph, Isaiah, to name a few…they believed. They proclaimed the truth of this coming Savior.
This annoyed Lucifer immensely. Their faith continuously reminded him of that ominous prediction he heard way back in Eden, so long ago. It was these people’s faith that this was a passing age, that a new one would come, that they were all just a part of this story, that helped these Old Testament men and women accept their suffering and the state of this world. This world is under the temporary “control” of Lucifer. And look at his kingdom, full of disease, despair, hatred and division. His kingdom is our fallen world. But each time they were overwhelmed by the state of this world, God lifted their eyes to Him and reminded them of His plan and His goodness. Their present fallen state and suffering was diminished in the Hope of a new age to come. These people believed that someday, the only Person who could defeat the god of this world would arrive. For centuries, Lucifer used rulers, Pharaohs, rulers, and kings to silence those who believed that he would indeed be destroyed by a coming Savior.
Finally, that silent night arrived, and this Mighty Warrior came…nothing like anyone expected! This King arrived as a baby with no fanfare, seeming completely ordinary. Still, Lucifer immediately tried to kill Him. This “Crusher of Evil” grew up as a completely ordinary man. It was nothing like religious leaders had assumed it would be. This was partially because Lucifer, in his craftiness, had slowly seeped into religion itself, hoping these “people of faith” would someday turn on their own. Jesus Christ seemed highly aware that the same serpent was poisoning the minds of the people who claimed to love His Father. The message of Jesus was so radical. He hung out with outcasts, people living in sin and hopelessness, and He loved them with a love that defied all reason. He had only three short years of ministry, but in those years He did exactly what God sent Him to do. He taught people about a new way, the Way of Love
Lucifer’s deception had worked, however, and the very people who claimed to love God were the ones who nailed Him to a cross. They were blind and deceived. Lucifer succeeded in killing Jesus Christ. He must have lived in dread of His coming for centuries, and just like that, He was dead. Even stranger, He died willingly. That should have been a clue to Lucifer that he is not the one in control of this Story. But what a party he must have thrown for those 3 days!
He continues to underestimate God.
But then, the unexpected happened. This is why I personally identify as a Christian. Jesus Christ did what no other religious leader, guru or martyr has ever done…HE CAME BACK TO LIFE. It was the hugest slap in the face in history. Jesus undid the very curse that Adam and Eve brought upon humanity way back in Eden. He defied death itself. What Lucifer had thought as his greatest victory, was really only him FULFILLING what he had been told in Eden, so long ago. He had unwittingly been playing right into God’s hand, all along.
A new Age began that day…the Age we are all in now. The death of Jesus represented in every way, the atonement that was previously required by The Law. Christ made it easy for people to become justified in God’s eyes. No more animal sacrifices, no more self-loathing, no more LAW. This was all made available at no cost to us, but it was the greatest cost to Him.
Jesus endured not only excruciating torture, but He felt the crushing weight of sin. 1 Peter 2:24 says that He bore our burdens on the tree. That is no small statement. Someone who lived a perfect life, in complete oneness with God, walked among humans and loved them fiercely, in the very midst of their fear, shame, and despair. But He didn’t just obliterate sin and its effects right away, He took them onto Himself first.
He felt the despair of suicidal people. He felt the shame of adulterers. He felt the loneliness of outcasts, and the hopelessness of the abused. He felt the rage of murderers. Imagine your worst moment of despair, and multiply it by the entire world’s population…past, present, and future. He felt IT ALL, and in that horrible moment, the Savior of the world was blinded by sin. The weight of it caused Jesus to cry out to His Father, completely horrified and tormented by the separation that sin causes. The spotless Lamb was slaughtered. WHY?????
Love.
How could a God who hates us me and sees me as nothing but a disappointment…waiting for a reason to heap judgement and consequences upon me…do something so selfless, so loving? If God is really only a God of JUSTICE, why would He send a completely innocent Lamb, His SON no less, to be murdered by us? Because unlike the enemy who operates in FEAR, God operates in PERFECT LOVE. He loves His story, and He loves His creation. The prize is US. He gave everything to bring us back to the same fellowship that was had in Eden. Once again, there is a choice to make, and all that is required is belief. Someone must only believe in the name of Jesus, believe that this Story is true, and they will be saved from eternal separation from God. Again…no cost to us…huge cost to Him. But in that cost, He gave us the answer to the first question I asked.
How do we make peace with our own suffering and the suffering of the world around us?
The answer is in the cross. What was an object of suffering, The Rugged Cross, was transformed into a beautiful Mercy Tree. How did Jesus do that? How did He get through HIS suffering, especially knowing that He didn’t deserve any of it? He accepted His suffering because He knew Who He was, and He fixed His eyes on what was unseen…what was to come. He knew that on the other side of His brutal death, He would finally be back home. It was all temporary.
How do we get through our own lives, at times feeling torn apart by evil, beaten down by the enemy, living our lives as best we can, but still receiving a cancer diagnosis, or having your spouse cheat on you? How can God allow it if He is good and in control? Because HE knows that this is all temporary. This life is not at all the end. He gave us Christ as a blueprint. We can live in a new identity, an unseen REALITY, once we believe. That identity is the “much more than” phenomenon, which gives believers a mystical quality. We experience joy in the midst of the cancer diagnosis. We feel peace when our life is falling apart around us. We genuinely love the most unlovable people.
Not only did our Conqueror take our sins away from us, but He didn’t leave our hands empty. He gave us HIS righteousness. He completely separated our spirit from our flesh, and our spirit became ONE in Christ, and with God. We now have access to the same exact power that brought a dead man back to life. We become “hidden with Christ in God.” So when the enemy tries to torment or blind us again with suffering, he finds he is face to face with his Defeater. God’s fulfilled promise to Lucifer way back in Eden haunts him endlessly now. His head was indeed crushed, and all he has power to do now, is flail and nip at His heel. The whole point of The Mercy Tree was so that WE now can also step on that serpent’s head, while he does nothing but bite our heel.
That “biting of the heel” is the nuisance that is our sin nature and suffering. It is only confined to the bodies we live in. But let us not forget that if we are IN CHRIST, then our foot is on Lucifer’s head. Who is really winning in that scenario? The “bites” come as temporary fear, shame, despair, etc…but it would be a tragedy to lose sight of the power we have access to. We can live wielding that power, just as our ancestors did, by accepting that we are all just a part of The Greatest Story ever told. We live in faith that another and final Age is still to come.
This current world is still under the temporary rule of its fallen god, Lucifer. As a result, it is bound in polarity. We have good and evil. Right and wrong. Love and hate. In the Age to come, there will be no polarity. There will only be GOOD. But we will still be us, and we will love that Age all the more because we will still be in the Story…we’ll have just made it to the best part. The end of the Bible gives us a glimpse of what this new Age will be like, and it sounds perfect.
It seems as if The Creator intends to bring His beloved Creation full circle…back to the Garden of Eden, as it was meant to be all along. But HOW MUCH MORE will we worship, fellowship with, and enjoy our good Father in that garden! We will not just be perfect creations, but redeemed believers. There will be no god but the One True God. True peace will reign, and we will spend eternity raising our voices in an anthem crying, “Worthy is the Lamb Who was slain, but rose again and crushed the serpent’s head! Worthy is our Defender and Friend, Jesus, who took away the sins and suffering of the world.”