WHAT DOES GOD ALLOW ?

After a tragedy or a natural disaster, we often hear people remarking that God allowed this to happen for some greater purpose. This is one of the most horrible answers to evil and suffering in the world because such a concept suggests that God is in fact responsible for the tragedy, that He is the perpetrator or an accessory to crimes against humanity. If He allowed it, He must have been in agreement with it. Can this be true?

When a teenager decides to take the family car, rob a bank, run over pedestrians and lead the police on a dangerous chase, did the parents allow this to happen? Was it the parents’s will, believing that some greater good would be accomplished through the deaths of others? What do you think ?

The truth is that God did NOT allow sin and evil into the earth. Man allowed it. God created man in His own image and gave him the earth as well as the power to make choices. There was no sin, no death, no sickness, no war, no natural disasters and no suffering in God’s creation.

Man’s wrong choices and the consequences of his disobedience cannot be imputed to God. Men are allowed to choose to demonstrate their faithfulness and love for God, or their independence from Him.

Suffering and tragedies have never never been God’s will. God never allowed them. He is allowing man to be man. The blame falls on man, not God.

Destructive weather, corruption, sickness, death, war, hatred, strife, immorality, crime and lawlessness are what man has allowed. God does not « allow» it, He does not approve of it. But He must honor man’s decisions.

Sin entered the world through man, not through God. God allows man to choose dependence upon Him and live. If man chooses darkness and death, God will respect that decision, but He is not responsible for the heartache and suffering that will result from it.

We must understand that the nature of God is good and that everything He created was good. But God does not control everything. He is never ever your problem. He is not the author of suffering, but He is the author of redemption, new life, healing, deliverance, peace, joy and abundance. The ability to choose lies within us.