I read this quote somewhere this week, ” What if God were not Good?” and it set me to thinking about the God that I serve. First of all when I speak of God, I speak of the trinity God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They were all present when this world was created. At my age, I just learned this in the past few years. I did not realize that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were present at creation, but I should have known because they are all the same person. Something else my human mind can not get its brain around that God, the son and the spirit are all one and they all love us.
When God created the earth and all its inhabitants, He said every time He created something that it was good. God can only be good. His creation is only good. His love for us is the purest love of all the love there is. So, people say, “Why does God allow horrible things to happen?” That would be an easy question if you didn’t know more about God. You would just think that God really isn’t that good and he wants to see people hurt, but that is absolutely not the case. You see, when God created people, he gave them a choice. He gave the the ability to love Him and walk with Him in the garden and enjoy all His wonderful creation. But He did put a tree in that garden that gave Adam and Eve a choice. The tree of knowledge. If He hadn’t put it there, they would not have had a choice, but He gave it to them with a warning that should they eat of that tree they would no longer have eternal life here on earth, but that they would allow sin in and and would die eventually. Well, most of us know what happened then. Eve was tempted. She had everything else at her disposal. She could eat of anything else freely, but the serpent tempted her. Now that old serpent was satan in diguise. And exactly how and where did satan come from?
Up in Heaven, before the earth was even made, Heaven was a glorious place with angel choirs singing God’s praises all day and the director of those angels? Satan, himself. He wasn’t satan then, he was the most beautiful angel in Heaven. God’s right hand man, you might say.
But satan got cocky. He began to believe he was as great as God who created him. He started talking to the other angels and got many on his side can you believe it, and they decided to go to war.Just think, a devil that can talk angels out of heaven must be pretty persuasive. What a war it was, but God always wins in the end and satan and all his followers, that we now call demons, were sent from Heaven. And where were they to go? Someone suggested in a Sunday school class one day that God may of sent satan to earth as a test. This is not Biblical, so don’t set this in stone, but I could see God sending his fallen angel here and saying to him, “Let’s see if you can do a better job on earth than I have done in Heaven.” I don’t know if that was what actually happened, but satan did finally end up here on earth in that Garden of Eden one beautiful day and set the course of earth on a far different course than God had planned.
Satan walked with Eve in paradise and told her she would not die if she ate of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, but she and Adam could become like gods and know both good and evil. Satan never tells you the truth. Just know that now. He whispers in your ear and tells you things are okay that aren’t all the time.
Eve gave a good look at that tree and saw that it was pleasant to the eyes(it must have been a beautiful tree) and its fruit looked good and here was the serpent saying if she ate of the tree she would become wise.
So Eve ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. People say it was an apple, but the Bible just says fruit. It could have been a fruit we have never seen or eaten before. Then dear Eve took that fruit to Adam and Adam ate of it also and their eyes were open to both good and evil at that very moment. They knew in an instant that they had been changed. They noticed their nakedness because they sewed leaves together to cover themselves and when God came walking in the garden to commune with them, they hid. They knew then that they had gone against God. God already knew, also, but He wanted them to tell Him what they had done. The first sin. Sin separates us from God because God is so good. None of us can be good enough for God because of what Adam and Eve did in that garden. We all know the difference between good and evil. At least most of us do. And we have a choice to do good or do evil.
So now you are asking why God allows bad things to happen. This is why. There is a choice between good and evil on our planet. Some people choose good. Some people choose evil. Even the weather was messed up after the fall. That is why we now have earthquakes and floods and all manner of disasters. But there are people who show the love of God by helping others in their distress. God never wanted bad things to happen to his Creation but he had to give a choice or we would just be His robots, doing exactly what He wants us to do, but that is not why He created us. He loves us and wants us to love Him back, but He gives us a choice. He even sent His son, Jesus to die on the cross. When Jesus hung on that cross, He took every single sin in the would upon Himself and those who believe on Him will have their sins forgiven.
Why doesn’t God just forgive us all and be done with it some ask. Well, there’s that thing about choice again. If He forgave us all, His son would not have had to die and we would be back to being robots again. I’m glad God loves us enough to give us a choice. I would not love a god that made me love Him. But I do love a God who gave His only Son, just for me and just for you. God is love and He loves us and does not want a single person to to go hell. Yes, there is a hell. I sure don’t want to go there and I am happy Jesus died for me that day over two thousand years ago. He’s coming back one day to take his church(his followers) to Heaven to live with him for all eternity.
And then the next question. When is Jesus coming back and why is He taking so long? I have an answer for that, but that will have to be for another post because this one is getting rather lengthy. The Bible answers most of our questions if we study it with an open mind and a heart to learn.
So God is good. I’m glad He’s good because how horrible it would be if God were not good and did not love us. If you have stuck with me through this, thank you. Sometimes I get a call from God to do something and this is what He called for me to do today. I hope it gives some understanding to people as to why bad things happen on this earth despite a loving God watching over us. He loves you, just remember. Bye.