Devotional Challenge Day 4

Judges 6:13 “Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?

This is it! One of the questions everyone has in their lifetime. It is said that the first reason people give for not believing in God is the Evil in the World. If God was all good, and all powerful, there would be no evil. So because there is evil, then there can be no God.

Because we see this question in the Bible, we know that evil in the world is therefore not incompatible with the God of the Bible. It is really hard to explain why God allows some evil. Essentially how I can make sense of it, is in terms of freewill. Do I want to be free? Or do I want to be a robot? Free! Of Course! Freedom means, I am able to do good, but also able to do evil. If I have this freedom, then so does everyone else. When different people's freedoms collide, we harm each other, there is evil!

I also like making the case, that suffering is God's mercy. He makes us realize that evil/sin is a reality, pointing us to our own need for a savior. Christ, came into this world of brokenness, he knew no sin, but became sin, dying on the cross reconciling all things to himself, that we might become the righteousness of God, blameless, and without reproach before him! (2 Cor 5:21, Col 1:22).

Whenever we doubt the existence of God because of of our pain, a hopeless situation, we can remember Giddeon. At a time when Israel was handed over to the Midianites for 7 years. He had not hope. In the beginning of the Story, he was just hiding. We can identify with him here. God is still sovereign, and able to do anything, as we see later in Giddeons story, as they defeats Midian with a small army of 300 soldiers!