Does God allow evil to happen to us?

by Bibi Babatunde-Ikotun

Hi family, in today's post I may not give full answers but I ask some questions that will require you to think critically about your faith and hopefully go into a journey of deconstructing and reconstructing your beliefs about God.

We say God is good all the time. 

We say God is love.

We say God does not change.

We say God is light.

Do we really believe these things about God?

I ask because sometimes we say things like God caused me to have an accident so I can draw closer to him or God allowed my loved one to die so I can be pruned or God allowed calamity to before me so I can find my purpose.

Why would a good God cause you pain to bring you closer to Him?

Why would the almighty God who doesn't impose the most important thing (salvation) on us cause us to suffer in order to draw us close to him?

My keyword is CAUSE!

Let's look at some scriptures that will help us think critically on this topic:

James 1:17 (NKJV) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

What is good about sickness? death? natural disaster? Absolutely nothing! The scripture also says there's no variation or shadow of turning in God which means God doesn't change! He is consistent! He is not good today and bad tomorrow. If He is the one healing us, delivering us, sustaining us, how can He also be the same person inflicting us with these things? If we believe He can destroy us and save us simultaneously, then we lie when we say "He changeth not". What do we believe about God?

1 John 1:5 (AMP) This is the message [of God’s promised revelation] which we have heard from Him and now announce to you, that God is Light [He is holy, His message is truthful, He is perfect in righteousness], and in Him there is no darkness at all [no sin, no wickedness, no imperfection].

God is perfect in righteousness! If we as His righteousness (Children) know not to cause harm to people in other to make them like us how much more God? The one who made us righteous. There is no wickedness in God. You may be thinking but He loves who He chastises but chastisement is not punishment. God will not correct you with anything outside His nature. He corrects us with His word by reminding us of who we are. There's no sin, wickedness or imperfection in God. He can't give what He doesn't have. Before the fall of man, we know that there was no sickness, pain and all the other bad things. And when we get to heaven, there won't be these things either. This means that God is not in possession of them, He simply can't give what He doesn't have!

By now, you may probably be thinking Bibi how about Job? or I know God doesn't cause bad things to happen but He permits them just as in the case of Job. 

I possibly can't exhaust the explanation today but I will share what I can and I pray it helps you repent from thinking God permits evil.

Hebrews 1:1-3 (NKJV) God, who [a]at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the [b]worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had [c]by Himself [d]purged [e]our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

If you read my previous post about Jesus being God here, you'll know where I am going. The scriptures say that in the past God revealed Himself in bits to the people through the prophets, dreams, vision and other means. But now, He has revealed the fullness of Himself in CHRIST. This means that Christ is the explanation of God. Everything God has to say to us and everything God wants us to know about Him is embodied in the person of Christ.

So to read the scriptures especially Old Testament books, you must put on the lens of Christ. The people of the old were not aware of satan, everything thing supernatural was by God. That is why you will see a verse like this:

I Samuel 16:14‭-‬15 (NKJV) But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul’s servants said to him, “Surely, a distressing spirit from God is troubling you.

How can an evil Spirit be from God? Isn't that an irony? Doesn't it show that they were oblivious to the devices of Satan? And satan has always been a crafty serpent that loves to work undercover to taint our mindset about who God is. We must be consistent in our understanding of God lest we allow the devil to take advantage of us.

If you read the book of Job, you will see that He was very inconsistent with His view of God. 

Elihu knew something about God that Job didn't, see in Job 37.23 (NLT) We cannot imagine the power of the Almighty; but even though he is just and righteous, he does not destroy us.

We must look to the person of Christ to know God. We must not go by the understanding of the people of the Old Testament because they didn't yet have His full picture. But we have Christ, we can understand God's nature by looking at the person of Christ. 

A lot has been said about God that are not true, like see where Job repented of his perspective in Job 42 3-6 (MSG) 

’ I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head. You told me, ‘Listen, and let me do the talking. Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.’I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears! I’m sorry—forgive me. I’ll never do that again, I promise! I’ll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor.”

If you truly believe the narration of Job about God permitting the devil to destroy his life, think again. Will Jesus permit the devil to strike? Do Jesus and the devil hang out with each other? This was the same person that said "should we collect good from God and not evil", considering that you now know that God does not do evil.

Think about it.

You may also think but Bibi, God is sovereign overall. But God's sovereignty doesn't mean that He causes all things to happen. His sovereignty is clearly seen in His salvation plan. Since He can't force men into salvation, He is the giver of free will. God gave man free will, this has both positive and negative consequences. You can't blame God for man's choices.  Evil is man-made, derived from bad chioces.

It is important to add that as believers we're not immune from the sufferings of this world. This is not a matter of God forbid. If you look at the lives of the apostles, they suffered a lot. We can't say it's because they weren't praying or fasting that this thing happened to them. The Bible actually makes it clear that faith in Jesus Christ does not guarantee a pain-free life, but a perfect eternity. 

Whatever the difficult situation you may be facing, I want you to know that God is good and gracious to you. He did not cause you to lose your job or suffer loss but I know that He will be with you through all of your pain. He will neither leave nor forsake, He will keep you in perfect peace in the midst of troubles. I know that the pain will turn out for your good and for His glory. God is still in the business of turning the things the enemy meant for good for evil.

To wrap up today, I really charge you to think about some bad things you've gone through and maybe thought God caused to happen to you. I want you to unpack it with the correct view of God and I want you to let it go.

I'll end with this poem, you can memorize it to help you remember God's nature

God is love, God is light.

God is good, all the time.

God doesn't cause evil or pain.

God delivers, rescues and saves.

God's heart breaks when He sees suffering.

He has given free will and He won't rescind it.

He gave His life to fix it all.

No matter what happens, rejoice that your eternity is secure in Him.