Finding the best answers (a work in progress)

The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever. –Isaiah 40:8 (NIV)

Taken as a whole, the Bible is a single story of how God has interacted with humanity over the course of history. Upon examining the evidence, I must decide, “Can I trust the God of Scripture with my life?” I see Who He is, and the story makes some sense. But I also see a world around me that is pretty messed up. And historically speaking, a lot of people who say they love and believe in God seem to have been part of the problem. What to make of that?

If I apply Jesus’ words literally and play them out to their logical end, or see how God responded to certain peoples in certain times, I could get a sense of foreboding. Is this God really good? Is He kind? Is He fair and just? If He didn’t have plans to save us all, why did He make us in the first place? It’s a paradox: We are wonderfully made in the image of God, AND we have hearts that are deceitful beyond all cure. That pesky “free will thing” keeps gumming up the works.

The innate sense of right and wrong we were entrusted with lets us know there are inherently evil behaviors. We identify those who intentionally engage in such behaviors to be evil people. Would a good God fail to hold evil people accountable for their evil deeds? Bad news: We’ve all taken the bait. We’re all evil, to one extent or another, leaving us all under the curse of sin. Good news: God the Son paid our sin penalty, releasing us from the curse.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 6:23 NIV)

And yet, some choose to go their own way, leaving them subject to the wrath of God. Here’s the thing: the wrath of God is never a rash outburst of uncontrolled rage, but a measured, righteous judgment administered after fair warning and opportunity for repentance. Before we judge the Judge, we do well to ask: Who is more likely to have a true understanding, a right view of good and evil, to know the hearts of those being judged? Is it the Infinite One, who put it all in motion and has been there since before time began? Or is it me, peeking in through a pinhole on the whole of history and interpreting it through the fuzzy lens of my own limited experience?

Each of us comes to the party with our own preferences, personalities, experiences, biases, backgrounds, culture, upbringing, mental capacity, emotional maturity, and spiritual understanding. It’s no wonder that sincere, God-loving people see the world, God, and the will of God differently sometimes. The inconsistencies are ours, not His. One day, we will all arrive at perfect knowledge. In the meantime, we’re all in this together – a little grace goes a long way.

Stay in the game. The journey of discovery is worthwhile, if not easy. Have you seen enough of Him and His character to trust Him with the things you’ve not seen? After all, who’s to say that the Sovereign LORD of the universe does not have an answer for the souls and situations that strike my finite mind as unfair or illogical or vexing? Just because I don’t yet have an answer I’m satisfied with doesn’t mean no such answer exists. "Will not the judge of all the earth do right?"

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. –1 Corinthians 13:11-13 (NIV)