Saturday 12 March 2011

Why does God let these things happen?

This is an exert from a sermon for tomorrow.
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Why does God let these things happen?I wish I knew is the fast answer.
It's a question I am often asked by atheist friends trying to score points. If your God loves us so much why does He let great earthquakes, storms, floods and famine happen?
It is a fair question.
The first answer is that it's not new. There have been terrible acts ofGod. The Bible is full of them and although there is a temptation to say they are punishments wreaked upon us by an angry God I do not believe this to be the case.
Some of my colleagues do seem to believe that God lets these things happen to teach us a lesson but I don"t believe that either. I refuse to believe that the God of love who gave us this wonderful place to live in wants to punish us but I do believe that some of it has been brought on by our own selfish acts.
We were placed as stewards of our world. In the garden of Eden there was perfection. Fruit grew, the sun shone, the serpent could have been a friend if we'd treated him right!
What did we do to this wonderful paradise? We plundered it. Half the world grew fat whilst the other half starved. This rape of our planet continues to this day in the cutting down of the rain forests of South America. We lead wonderful lives, using power as though it was an inexhaustible supply.
We have done this to ourselves. I do not believe God is punishing us. He gave us free will and we have misused it so we wreak the whirlwind. We have to find sustainable power no matter what the cost.
This world of ours is small. We are neighbours with everyone else in it.
As Christians we have to care for those neighbours who live far away. Modern communications means we know whats happening to them almost as it happens. This is a call to our very souls. Please God let us act on it.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Personally I'm not convinced that there ever was a perfect Eden, I read that story as myth — but I live in hope of one. But you are so right in your observations about the ways in which we, the human race, plunder our planet: should it come as a surprise when, like an animal bitten by fleas, it tries to shake us off? It is a living planet and we treat it with contempt at our own risk...

Oh, and as for God 'allowing' these things ... I think we'd do well to stop for a moment and reflect on the sheer immensity of the universe and how insignificant we are... then, perhaps, we'd be a little more amazed that God bothers with us at all.

I have difficulty holding my own life together: my own body does things I don't want it to; yet am I not my body's 'God'? How much more must God fight to maintain 'his' body, the entire cosmos?

Just a few reflections, for what they're worth :)

Anonymous said...

... and I love your observation "the serpent could have been a friend if we'd treated him right!" - I think of the West's relationship with Islamic extremists, for instance, and wonder what difference it might have made, whether 9/11 would even have happened, if we in the West had approached other countries with a little more humility and spent the vast amounts we've spent on armaments and supporting corrupt regimes simply to protect 'our' oil supplies (the 'apple' they offered us), on building infrastructure, providing clean water, hospitals and schools instead...

Robin Dalton said...

Thank you for this. Thank you for the reminder of stewardship and the reminder that we have a loving God who is standing next to us and in our hearts when we are able to open them...

KeyReed said...

The God of the Old Testament could get quite angry!