Queasiness and THE Cause

My family has dealt with all sorts of sickness over the past month. The most recent foray into the land of germs was God allowing me to experience the best diet on the planet, the stomach flu. What does this have to do with THE Cause? Many people blame God for many of the evils, pain, and suffering in the world. God does cause some things we perceive as bad to happen, but we need to remind ourselves of the nature of God’s original creation. It was “all very good.” (Gen. 1:31) God’s original creation did not know illness, pain, death, or tossing cookies. It was our fault, not God’s, that these bad things made their way into our world. Don’t just blame Adam and Eve. Yes, they fell, but nobody other than Christ has been perfect since. As a part of God’s earthly punishment for sin he enacted turmoil and strife upon all earthly creation.

So next time someone tells you that there can’t be a loving God because of all of the evil in the world, remind them that God did not create evil. In fact, evil really isn’t a “something.” Evil is the lack of good. All that God created was good. He created mankind with the capacity to express our love for Him through voluntarily obedience. This left the possibility for rebellion. Satan exploited this void and man rebelled and fell short of the potential we had to be obedient to God. God knew this would happen, but valued a relationship with mankind enough to create us anyway. He even knew He’d have to send Jesus to atone for our sins in order to restore all creation to its original state, and yet He created us anyway because He loves us and loves the relationship we can have with Him. That’s the good news. For those that believe, the curse of sin, sickness, conflict, and death will be removed and we will again commune with God as Adam and Eve did before they fell. This is the Good News that we share, God’s love shown through the sacrifice of Christ will undo the curse we brought upon ourselves and we will spend forever living face-to-face with our Savior.