Clearly, they have something to hide if they blackmail me into silence with, 'it's a sin- if you talk about you'll be dividing a church and if you desire to tell people, than you are a back-bitter, seeking division.' And yet they can't even- or they simply refuse- to see why they fear other's knowing what they've done. I desire to tell people because I feel slapped and then sworn to secrecy. I feel someone I love was slapped, I was still sworn to secrecy, again and again. Because their actions tell me they don't practice what they preach- and in that case I feel I should warn the people they preach to- with great urgency and longing do I desire to warn them.
I don't stay silent because they commanded it. I stay silent because God has shown me, all actions, evil and good, He has only allowed because in the end He'll use them for good. All authorities, good and evil, are allowed because God will turn the evil on it's head for His glory. God doesn't need me to swoop in and save the day, He can tear a empire down in a second. He can reduce a cartel to dust before you can blink. He let's evil continue because He's working.
God loves us, so He lets us choose if we will act good or evilly, not forcing good upon us or into our minds. He doesn't want mindless, obedient robots, or children who do good, knowing He watches, because they're afraid of a punishment. He wants children, who do good because they love Him, who will feel convicted in their hearts if they did something offensive to Him, even in His absence, because they respect Him. So He gave us freewill, and if He were to remove evil completely from the world, we would no longer obey out of love, but out of nature, because it would be the way we were programmed, and you might even say we would be trapped.
That being said, evil is still evil. God wants you to have a choice, but He being good, can't let evil run rampant or unpunished, after all, He created you, and if a man created even a robot that malfunctioned and hurt someone, he would be held responsible, at the very least for cleaning up the mess.
I'm not blaming God for the evil in the world, but I believe, Him being good and unconditionally loving His fallen creation, decided to put the responsibility on Himself to clean up OUR messes. He didn't have to, He created something with much more intelligence than a robot, made in His own image. We know what good is, but we still choose to be selfish at the expense of others.
Now, because God has allowed freewill and choice, people seemingly get away with evil acts. We experience it every day, from an unprovoked harsh word to an unprovoked sexual assault. Evil is evil and it keenly stings when you're on the wrong end of it. It hurts you like a drug addiction from the other end.
Why does God allow evil when He loves you? He loves the person who did evil to you, so He gave them freewill, but where does that put you? The answer is in the truth that He loves you just as much as them.
God, being perfect and all-knowing, is in the business of turning evil upside-down for good.
Look at Jesus death. God took the greatest act of evil and hatred- an attempt on God's life, while in the form of a man- and made it the greatest act of love and self-sacrifice the world has ever seen, using His death to destroy death. He takes the wise things of man and makes them foolish and the foolish, insignificant things of man and makes them the greatest, most significant mysteries. God's forte is using Satan's attacks against him. Knowing this, look at the evil done to your life and believe God will or has used it for good. He is all-knowing, we can only see from where we stand, He is everywhere, above, below, on every side, in every dimension of the heart. He can see intentions, He can see reactions and consequences, He fits together every act, evil and good, like a grand puzzle, that will in the end proclaim to the universe, "I am God and I have always loved you."
All of history has one running theme between God and man. God makes a covenant with man and man fails. Look at Adam, with only one rule, don't eat the fruit. Abraham, wait and I'll give you a son. Moses, here's the entire law, laid out in detail for you. Every time, man failed. Something to notice deep within this running theme, is the decisions made before failure.
In the garden, Eve spoke with the serpent, and doubts of God were planted in her mind. His very character was being threatened. She chose to believe a lie, that God was keeping the fruit from her, keeping knowledge from her, lying to her about the consequences, all she chose to believe, from a complete, silver-tongued stranger.
Abraham and Sarah were told they would be given a son, who would in turn give way to entire nation of countless descendants. They were impatient and chose to believe, God couldn't give them a son in their old age. They took the promise into their own hands, ignoring God's timing and taking what they wanted now. They believed a lie.
When Moses led the children of Israel into the desert, God had more than proven His ability and desire to protect and love them, in the plagues and miracles He continued to perform, but again and again, they complained, turned from, and cowered before God.
My theory of this theme is that God hasn't been shaking His head at humanity for thousands of years, but instead been waiting patiently, exhausting every excuse His fallen creation could give and trying to convince them of His true character.
All God wants is for you to believe the truth of His love and cling to it. Don't let what you see or feel change the truth to a lie in your heart or mind. Remember His love. I forget it so often. I can preach it to others but I seem to forget how much He loves me, that He literally desires to spend time with me. For me to pour out my heart to Him, even though He knows it all already.
Remember that Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Moses and all of Israel, all had good desires, they just exercised them out of God's will, because they refused to believe in God's ability and desire to take care of them. Eve wanted knowledge- instead of asking God, she took what He commanded her not to. Abraham wanted God's promise fulfilled, instead of waiting on God, he followed Sarah's suggestion and took a second wife, to produce an offspring now. The children of Israel were afraid and tired of eating the same thing for months. Instead of believing God was capable and desiring to protect them and fulfill their needs, they complained, turned to idols, depended on what they could see from their limited perspective, and decided God couldn't or wouldn't take care of them.
The entire story of our existence, God has been trying to convince man of His true character, but we continue to believe lies, even as Christians. God hasn't been stumbling through history, cleaning up after us, or been pouring out exaggerated grace to get our attention. That unconditional grace is His true character- it's what He looks like every day. It's not His Sunday clothes or His painted face- it's how God actually is- unchanging through all eternity. He wasn't trying to reign in His creation, to fill Heaven so we could serve Him for eternity. He wants us to individually, personally, intimately, know His character, to be gathered into His arms and taken care of by Him for eternity. He paid the price so we could know His character. His actions aren't for the purpose of showing us, 'Look at all I've done for you', His actions are the natural outpourings of His desire to be reconciled with us.
In the face of evil, depend on God to defend you. Believe God only lets people get away with evil for a time, because in the end it will play out into His will. All pain and suffering is only allowed if it will do good in the end. Remember God is in control and all evil act has it's purpose, or it would have never been allowed to be committed. Above all, remember God is love.
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