The problem of evil in the world has always been one that has tested men’s faith. And not just their faith in God. We’re also talking faith in people, faith in institutions, faith in the power of good to overcome evil, and so on and so forth. Yes, there is a LOT of evil in this world, a lot of it. But on the other side of the formula, there is also a lot of good. It is just that evil tends to be louder, more flamboyant. People notice it much more quickly than they do the good things, and they make a bigger deal out of it. Our media is partly to blame for this, of course, but so are we. I mean, how often do you find yourself gossiping with someone else about some big story you heard? You know, the one about the woman who left her husband because she was sleeping with an artist and decided she loved him more than her husband. Or the one about the husband who ran down his wife in their front yard with the family minivan. With their 9-year-old daughter in the passenger seat. Isn’t it so easy to talk about these things? Don’t they inspire a lot of conversation? Don’t they incite some of your baser passions? Don’t they excite you in some horrifying manner of disbelief and shock? And isn’t it so easy to become cynical about people, to question how a supposedly loving God can allow such horrendous things to happen to such (seemingly) good people? Isn’t it so easy to let such horror and pain and suffering — and yes, evil — quench our faith just a little? And then, one day, you find that you have become so hardened in your heart that you wonder why you had any faith to begin with. We have forgotten the good things. We have forgotten that there really is a God who loves and cares and who hurts to watch these things happen to the creatures made in his likeness. It was never meant to be like this. It was meant to be a perfect world. But God in His sovereignty did not want a mechanical love from His creation. So, He gave us free will, and we chose to forsake Him, accepting the consequences of that decision. And now sin and evil exist, for a season, and we must bear that. Soon, though, all will be made perfect again, and sin and death will be no more. Pain and suffering and sadness will be wiped away, and it will be like they never were. Until that day, we must walk strong and keep the faith and look ahead, as Paul said, on those things which are before us, forsaking those things which are behind us, plodding on to the goal which He has set before us, therein to be made into the image of the Son. So, keep the faith, my friends, and be encouraged. These hardships we face cannot last much longer, and then we shall enjoy a bliss unlike any other we have ever known.

Amen

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What can I say…. I was inspired….

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