Free To Choose

It is a beautiful thing that the Lord knows me and loves me.  There is a wrestling that comes when we realize the truth that God sees and knows all, and He is all-powerful.  We look around at broken lives and know that He has the power to override the hurting situations, to protect from injury, and to heal illness.  God is not ignorant about these things; God sees. Yet He does not intervene.  This seems completely incongruent through our eyes.  We then wrestle through what it means to walk by faith and not by sight.  We wrestle through whether He is good - truly good - or not.  We can then wrestle through what it means to be good.  Some conclude that God is not good and does not love.  Others conclude that He is good and love regardless of what circumstances reflect. 

I have written before, and will most assuredly write again, that God is more trustworthy than my understanding.  God sees.  We can take this as a condemnation or a comfort.  He sees the slaughter of innocents.  He sees the strength of evil men.  He watches the devastation of hurricanes.  He looks on while the woman is bruised, and the child is abused and abandoned. He sees the secret plans of leaders.  He sees the drug addict and the prostitute in despair.  He sees the starving children cry for food. He is aware of the tears of the parents who can't help rebellious children.  He see it all.  He is neither ignorant or blind.  He is not caught up in other affairs and these things have not slipped His attention.  He is completely aware and present in all of it. 

More than that, as if that wasn't enough, He knows.  He knows about each instance.  He knows the motive.  He knows the outcome.  He knows the intention. He knows the pain that will ensue.  He know that harm that will come.  He knows how it will affect the next generations and the neighbors.  He knows all of it before it happens.  The whole of time is His in one glance.  He sees and knows all.

We can go further in the charge.  He has all power over all these circumstances.  He is able to strike down a man or a nation with a word.  He can stop storms and hold back seas.  He is able to aid or prevent conception and destruction. Nothing is able to stop Him when He acts. Nothing is able to move Him when He does not.  In the midst of all this, His plan is never changed and is never thwarted.  His purposes will prevail.  Always. 

I have established that God sees, knows and has power over all circumstances.  He also chooses how He acts or does not act in all situations.  There are no oversights or haphazard deeds.  He does not bring the evil, though He can stop it or allow it to work.  God made man in His image.  He gave us the ability to choose how we act.  Unlike God, we cannot see all and do not have power over all, but we do have the option to choose.  He allows this.  He allows us to make a choice not to love Him.  He allows mankind not to pass down the knowledge of Him to their children.  He allows us to choose evil or good.  He allows us freedom to be enslaved to sin or righteousness.  He did this on purpose.  The results of this choice have wrought havoc in the world.  He did this so we could choose to receive His love and return His love.  If we were forced to love or be loved, we would either take it for granted with no appreciation for what we have, or we would resent being forced into it. 

When we do not know God, we read all this as a condemnation of Him.  If He has power over evil, why doesn't He stop it and make everyone play nice?  When we do realize more of who God is, we realize the incredible patience He has shown to mankind and the extensive mercy that He poured out at great cost and continues to pour out on His loved ones.  Much of the decision of whether this picture comes as a condemnation or a comfort lies in the realization of God's character.  God is fully love and He is completely just.  He has given mankind a choice and we walk in the way we choose.  Adam and Eve made a choice and predisposed the rest of us to choosing against trust in God.  God made us intelligent and we use our intelligence to reason away His power or existence or goodness.  He allows us to make that choice.  He allows that choice to affect our children and neighbors and co-workers and friends.  He allows those choices to go down many generations and affect people groups. 

In His justice, God allows us to reap what we sow.  In His mercy, He offers redemption.  He offers to pay for our bad choices and selfish character.  He offers.  He doesn't demand that we accept it.  He doesn't force it on our descendants.  He holds it out to us as a gift.  We choose.  We accept it and let others know about it, or we reject it and go on.  If you look closely at the incredibly loving actions of God in face of rejection and rebellion, you just might be astonished.  The Book describes it in some vivid and sometimes vulgar terms and if you were to try to relate, I would think you might be done with mankind, yourself included.  God is not done, however, and continues to hold out mercy and love to selfish and broken and deceived people. 

I am one of these.  Undone and remade by love.