This is part 3 of what will be a 5 part series, dealing with doubt. As was the case with the last 2 articles I posted, this article is a little out of the ordinary, as compared to what I normally write. I explained in parts 1 and 2 of the series, typically, I focus on discipleship, that is helping people who are already Christians to walk more closely with God and better serve Him in their daily lives. Occasionally, I focus on evangelism, which is helping to bring people into a relationship with God through a relationship with His Son, Jesus the Christ. Rarely do I try to change the minds of people who do not believe in the existence of God. However, in this article, I feel compelled to do so. This is what I am focusing on in parts 1 through 3 of this series. Parts 4 and 5 will focus on dealing with doubt in the life of someone who already is a Christian. I am speaking in general terms, concerning the audience of the parts of this series. Both Christians and non-Christians may find all 5 parts of this series helpful.
As I said in the first 2 articles of this series, in my experience, people say that the concept of God doesn’t make any sense, for two main reasons. One of those reasons is that an all-powerful being just speaking the universe and humanity into existence out of nothing simply makes no sense. I dealt with that in part 1 of this series. The other reason that people tend to doubt the existence of God is the question of why, if He exists, does God let bad things happen to good people. It is this subject that I discussed in part 2 and that I would like to now discuss in part 3 as well.
Many people think, if God exists, then why does He let bad things happen to good people? If He is all powerful, then why doesn’t He just stop all the bad things in the world from happening? There is a lot of very valid things that can be said about this but I think one of the simplest things that can be said is simply that, if He did that, then free will would be broken and so everything would be meaningless, including the most important thing, a relationship with Him.
When I asked my wife to marry me, I did just that, I asked her. I did not tell her that she was going to marry me. I don’t think doing it that way would have worked very well. Before that, I did not tell her that we were going to go out on a date, I asked her, and I was pretty nervous about it too. I was nervous because her answer was not a forgone conclusion. She had a choice to say yes or no and she had a lot of reasons to say no. I was a divorced blind guy with three kids and when she said yes, especially to the marriage, she was also saying yes to all the potential complications that went with that situation. I couldn’t make her say yes and, even if I could have, I wouldn’t have. Love cannot be forced. A forced yes would have been meaningless. In order for “yes” to be meaningful, “no” also must be a possibility. It was the very fact that she had a choice that gave her choice meaning. She knew what she was getting into, at least somewhat, and even though she didn’t have to and had plenty of reason not to, she chose me.
I said that in order for “yes” to be meaningful, “no” also must be a possibility, and it certainly was a possibility. If she had said “no”, that would have broken my heart. I had prayed about it and had no doubt that she was the one that God intended me to spend the rest of my life with, as my wife. Still though, God left it up to her. He was leading her in the same way that He was leading me. She listened to His voice and she said “yes”. That “yes” is meaningful to me because she had the freedom not to listen to Him and to say “no”. If she had said “no”, then I would not now have 2 of my children, who are such blessings to me. If she had said “no”, I might not be engaged in this ministry, of which she has been so supportive and in which she has played such a vital role. If she had said “no”, my life would likely be very different, and not in a good way. It is everything that would have sprung from the “no” that gives everything that has sprung from the “yes” such meaning.
The choices did not stop with the “yes”. Each of us having made the choice to enter into a relationship and then to marry, we now make choices, daily, that help to define the relationship. When my wife is gone, depending on what she’s doing, I may watch her position, on my phone, so that I can be at a good stopping point in my work, so that I can meet her at the door, to unload the groceries or talk about how the doctor appointment went or whatever I may need to do having to do with whatever she was doing. I don’t have to do these things. I choose to. She could not make me do them and, even if she could, she would not. If she could just press a button and make me do these things, then I would not be her husband, I would be her servant, and she wouldn’t want that. It is the fact that I don’t have to do them that gives meaning to the fact that I do them.
Let’s think about cars. When I was a kid, I had a toy race track with little electric cars on it. The track had 2 lanes, with a car in each lane, and the purpose of the track was to race the cars. The cars drew power from the track and a button you pressed on 2 remotes, one for each lane, controlled how much power the track conveyed. The further in you pressed the button, the faster the car on that lane went. The car took twists and turns but just went on the path defined by the track. If you gave it too much juice, the car wouldn’t make one of the turns and would fly off the track. That was the only way you could wreck the car. It would have been pretty easy to modify the remotes so that the car was limited to, say, half power. Then, it would have been impossible for the car to wreck. It would have also been difficult to race the cars, which was the whole point of the existence of the track and the cars. Safer would not have been better.
Now, let’s think about real cars. Our truck can go forward and backward, can turn left and right, and can go any speed you want from 0 to over 100. It also ways over six thousand pounds, making it potentially very dangerous, if you don’t take care in how you direct its motion. However, because of such versatility of motion, it is also very useful. We can drive it to church, or to pick up a load of dirt for the garden, or to take us on a road trip, or to do many, many other useful things, too many to list. What if the truck were limited to a single lane, on a predetermined track, like the toy electric race cars. It would be much safer. There would also be little point to its existence, as the driver would have no choice as to where it went. Having no control, I don’t know if they could really even be called a driver. The truck could be made almost completely safe, at the cost of making its existence almost completely meaningless.
It’s wonderful that my wife said yes to marrying me, because she could have said no. The things that we do for one another, to show our love, are wonderful, because we don’t have to do them. Our truck has meaningful utility, at the cost of crashing it being a possibility. Meaningfulness is inexorably linked to choice. Could God stop all the bad things from happening in the world. Sure, if He wanted to, but only at the cost of free will, making our lives nothing more than running on a predefined track, just living out a prewritten script. Would we really want Him to do that?
I just said that Meaningfulness is inexorably linked to choice. I think that’s true for many things but most of all for relationships, including a relationship with God, through His Son, Jesus. Speaking of my wife, I said that even though she didn’t have to and had plenty of reason not to, she chose me. It’s the same way with a relationship with Jesus. He too had a choice, He too had plenty of reason not to choose me, and yet, He did anyway.
2 Corinthians 5:21 says that Christ never sinned but he took our sins on himself and Romans 5:8 says that He died as punishment for those sins. He literally never did anything wrong, ever. Yet, the sins of the rest of humanity were placed upon him and He bore the punishment for those sins. Not only did he bear the horrors that any man would have borne who was executed by scourging and crucifixion, but He also somehow supernaturally took all of our eternities in Hell, compressed into those few hours. And none of it was because of anything He had done. It was because of what we did. Talk about the ultimate injustice. Why did He do that?
He certainly didn’t have to do it. Jesus was fully man and so He suffered as much as any man would, actually He suffered more. However, He was also fully God and, thus, He could have very easily stopped what was happening to Him. He did have a choice. I think we sometimes forget that. Speaking of His own life, in John 10:18, Jesus said “No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” In Matthew 26:53, just before His trial, Jesus said to Peter “do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?” In John 19:11, Jesus told Pilate “You could have no power at all against Me unless it had been given you from above”. Clearly, by His own admission, He could have stopped it. He had a choice and He made that choice with his eyes wide open. He knew exactly what He was getting into. He didn’t volunteer to go to the cross for me and then say “I didn’t know you had all this sin I was going to have to pay for”. Romans 5:8 says “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. He didn’t have to do what He did and He had plenty of reason not to but, still, He chose me. He also chose you. He was not like a car running on a predefined track. He freely chose you, because He wanted to, because He loves you so much.
Speaking of you, you have a choice here too. God, being God, could force you to choose Him but, as I said earlier, a forced choice isn’t really a choice and so is meaningless. God has chosen you but, in order to have a relationship with Him, you must choose Him too. I chose my wife as the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with but I had to find out how she felt about the situation. When I asked her to marry me, if she had said no, that would have been the end of that. Similarly, if you tell God no, or if you ignore His drawing you, then the answer is no.
I said I was nervous when I asked my wife to marry me because her answer was not a foregone conclusion. That is not so concerning entering into a relationship with God. We need not be afraid because we already have His answer. Romans 10:13 says “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”. If we call on Him and ask Him to save us, He will say yes but it is up to us to ask.
If we choose to ask to enter into a relationship with Him, the choices don’t end there. What if, after our wedding vows, I had made the choice to violate those vows and when my wife confronted me about the situation, I said “Oh, you were serious about that?”. How do you suppose the marriage would fair? If we enter into a relationship with God and we do basically the same thing, how do you suppose that relationship will fair? God is always faithful because faithfulness is in His very nature and He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). Jesus does not expect us to be perfect, as He is, but He does expect us to take the relationship seriously. In Luke 6:46, He said “why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?”. If we are to truly have a relationship with Him, we must continue to do our best to adhere to the standards found in His Word. He will help us to do that (1 Corinthians 10:13) but He will not do it for us. We must make the choice.
Loving relationships are all about choices and choices don’t make themselves. God wants a relationship with you and He has made His choices. What about you? If you would like to make a choice for Him, please visit the “The Most Important Thing” section of the SDM website.
