God's great mercy

At Bible study last Tuesday, one of the mothers said her kids were asking about why God allows evil if he is all-powerful. I wanted to share Nancy's thoughts, as I think she simply and clearly addresses this common question.

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I didn't get a chance to address your thoughts concerning your kids' questions about evil and why God made and allows it. They are really important questions to talk about because every thinking person will eventually ask them; and how you answer them forms the basis for believing if God is "good" or not.

If God created the capacity for evil and then deliberately did not prevent evil from harming us - it is easy to perceive that as "not good." So the question is, why is it SO important for us to have the right to choose - even if it means we might choose evil?

If you say to [your child], "Come and give me a kiss." You are giving her the opportunity to express her love to you by kissing you. If she says, "I don't really want to right now." She is expressing her ability to choose how and when to express her love to you. If you catch her and hold her really tight, and force her to give you a kiss, you have removed her ability to love you through giving you a kiss.

If Satan couldn't choose to serve and worship God; he would have been a slave and not an angel.
If we can't choose our own way, we also can't prove our love to God by choosing His way.

What we really want, is to be able to say that when it comes to my choices, God has to let me choose. But when sinful choices negatively affect people and even the earth, I want it to be God's fault! So we want to be the decider of when God should intervene and not let choice and consequence happen, and when he should not intervene and let choice and consequence happen.
We want to be the boss of God.

The other important thing to remember is that God consistently warns us that one day He will judge all evil. At that time, all evil that is not erased by Jesus' sacrifice, will be fully punished!

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I also want to share something God was teaching me regarding His great mercy.

What God was teaching me was based primarily on Genesis 3:16, the woman's sentence after the fall of man.

"To the woman he said, 'I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.'"

What God opened my eyes to was how merciful He is, even when handing out these sentences. The woman shall have pain... but it will be in bearing children. Then the pain is forgotten immediately (John 16:21) and is replaced with unbelievable joy. In the same way, the second sentence for the woman is that she will be subject to her husband. How good is God that He does not make us subject to all men, or subject to a stranger... but subject only to our own husband who is then called to love us.

Just a reminder of God's great love and mercy.

Lasty, another reminder of God's great love and mercy - our precious Adeline, trying to roll :)