| Why isn't the world the way I want it to be? If you have read the other articles on this web site, you may be thinking: "Ok so it is illogical to deny the existence of God and if there is a meaning to life, God is the one to tell us. My problem is that I dislike the way this world (or my life) is so much that I don't care what God has to say about it. If He is truly all-powerful he must not be good so why should I want to hear what He has to say?" If this is your sentiment, I encourage you to consider some things you have probably not considered before. 1. It is impossible that you have a higher standard of right and wrong than the creator does. I could go into a long explanation of this but you probably see that a creation can never become greater than its creator. This means that you having a different opinion than the creator demonstrates you are in error, not He. In fact, unless you appeal to God's ultimate measurement of right and wrong, you can't even talk about right and wrong for they are meaningless terms without an objective standard. 2. You like the way things are much more than God does. It isn't just your life or murderers or starving children or nations at war or the environment that bothers Him. Things that don't even bother most of us are an abomination to Him: Lying, blasphemy, gossip, drunkenness, envy, gluttony, etc. (See how His standard is higher than yours?) 3. God allowing evil things to exist does not mean He approves of it. There are plenty of things we will never know about God's ways but some basic ones are obvious. Number one is that it is illogical to think that God can grant humans freewill without allowing negative consequences when humans use their freedom wrongly. We and God want real freewill for ourselves which means there has to be real consequences to our choices. When someone says that God could create a world where this was not the case, they are confusing what we know about God and reality. This leads to a second point to remember. When God says he is all-powerful, it means He can do anything that is possible not anything. While the God of the Bible is all-powerful, He acknowledges that there are limits on what is possible. For example, God can not lie, He can not die, etc. To imagine that an all-powerful God could make freewill co-exist without consequences is to be illogical. Like someone wanting God to create a square triangle. (It can't be both can it?). We should therefore not make the mistake of thinking that God can not be all-powerful and good at the same time. He is and evil things do not prove otherwise. 4. As bad as things are, God is still in control and will ultimately make things right. In the present God does minimize the consequences of our evil choices. Things would be much worse if He didn't do this. The best proof of this will be a 7 year period when God says He will allow mankind to experience the full brunt of the consequences we are deserving of right now. But more importantly, God has a plan where we can eventually say "all's well that ends well". Though it may seem that nothing can make up for the atrocities this world has seen, earthly life is not the end and when we see things from an eternal perspective, we will agree that He has done all things well. 5. You are part of the problem not an objective observer. According to the God of the Bible, mankind (and that includes you) is in rebellion against Him and the evils and pains in this world are caused by this rebellion. The consequences of our rejecting God's rules is not limited to our relationship with Him; the condition of everyone and everything on earth is negatively effected by our continual rebellion. 6. While you have done absolutely nothing about the way things are, God lowered Himself to the lowest levels of humanity so he could change things. God did not just become a man when Jesus came to earth, he became the most pathetic of men. His race was looked down on by the world as a whole, their land was occupied by enemies; the area he grew up in was considered low-life among his race and the occupation he learned was the same. He was seen as a bastard born to an adulterous mother; he lived in poverty and obscurity for most of his life and was killed while he was young. He never married or owned property. In the 3 years that he became well known, he was constantly mocked by those around him including his own family and people he had healed. After being betrayed by one friend and abandoned by all others, he was publicly humiliated and tortured beyond recognition. This is the one you say hasn't done enough to fix things. |