by Tim Hall

It's a button atheists like to push. "How can you believe in God?" they ask with an incredulous expression. "If there was a good and all-powerful being, do you think he would allow war, poverty and disease?" It's a trap into which many have fallen. It just makes sense that an omniscient and omnibenevolent God would keep the world running in tidy fashion. But since the world is not tidy, then . . .

Gideon revealed such thoughts when the Angel of the Lord approached him. "O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?" (Judges 6:13, New King James Version). When God brought Israel into their Promised Land, they were invincible. Now they had to run for cover whenever the Midianites came riding through on one of their frequent raids. God? Obviously, He was on vacation or else He would defend His people.

We have the benefit of "the rest of the story". God often allowed suffering to come upon His people in an attempt to correct their sinful ways. Amos 4:6-11 records God's explanation of why He often stood aside when troubles befell His people. Whether the trial consisted of famine, drought, plague or pestilence, God's motive was always the same: To get His people to return to Him. The pain inflicted by the parent's rod is harsh, but the parent's loving desire to correct the child justifies the action.

In the New Testament, Jesus' friends second-guessed Him. After their brother had died, both Martha and Mary ran to Jesus with the same complaint: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died" (John 11:21,32). But they were mistaken. Though Jesus had not been physically present during the critical time of Lazarus' illness, the Lord was very much aware of his condition. There was a greater good to be served by waiting until after Lazarus died before arriving at their home.

Knowing the rest of the story helps us to see the wisdom of God. That's why Bible reading is such an important endeavor. We need to be reminded often that God knows the best path to take, even though human eyes may not see it that way at all. In time, His will becomes plain. But in the foggy present, we have difficulty seeing His wisdom.

Are we guilty of second-guessing the Lord? Have we made demands of God in our prayers, holding Him responsible for fulfilling our requests just as we state them? Do we excuse the disobedience of others by reasoning that "God will understand"? Are we guilty of pointing people away from clear statements of God's word toward a more comfortable "scholarly" explanation? In our minds it makes sense. But our minds are not God's.

The words of Isaiah 55:6-9 are both comforting and challenging: "Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon. 'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.'"

It is nothing short of amazing that God extends such grace to sinful mortals. But sinful mortals who are dependent on that grace must never presume to speak a message God has not spoken.

"But the Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him" (Habakkuk 2:20).