Why Does God Allow...? On 2020 and Why We Might Be Asking the Wrong Question

Normally I don't have much going on Wednesday mornings, but today I decided to go to what's called a "story group" session purely for the sake of extra credit. I was expecting to go to a room with a few other kids and a professor, hear an excerpt from a good book, maybe discuss it for a moment, and then go home. Turns out the professor asked a couple of really deep, difficult questions and asked us to share our thoughts and possible answers. Also, there was Chick-fil-A. But that's not the point here.

One of the questions that we discussed was something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. "Why does God allow difficult things like a global pandemic to happen? What can we take out of all this that's positive?" A question like that is something that I think we all avoid, but it's something that really, really needs to be discussed. Why does God allow a global pandemic to ravage the nation and the world? If he's a loving God, why would he ever allow something like this to happen to us?

I submit to you that maybe he didn't. Maybe we did.

Of course, God is all-powerful and could prevent anything in the universe from happening. He didn't have to let COVID-19 actually take effect. But we don't worship a God of puppets and stage props. The Lord I know didn't put us on this earth just so he could control our every move and control the motions of the world. Yes, God could have stopped COVID-19. But would you really want to serve a God that controls every single aspect of what happens to you?

With that now stated, the point that I'm trying to make is that God doesn't cause, or even merely sit back and watch, bad things that happen in the world. When human beings chose at the beginning of time to allow sin into the world instead of obeying the simple laws that God gave them, they were opening a door for things such as death, storms, riots, hatred, and--yes indeed--global pandemics. Sin is the cause of COVID-19, not God.

The rest of the point is a bit more complicated. So maybe humans did let sin into the world and are actually the cause of COVID-19. That doesn't really mean anything to us unless we find out what God has to do with all of it. Because if you believe in the God of the Bible, chances are you believe that he's involved in our everyday lives. Yes, God has a hand in every occurrence. That's a fairly well-known Biblical truth, so I don't see any merit in arguing otherwise. However, until the story group session, I don't think I ever stopped to really consider what God is doing in our lives this year except carrying us through it. But that's just it, isn't it?

God doesn't cause global pandemics, and he doesn't allow them to destroy us. There's what we might have overlooked with all our worrying and confusion over why this year is just so very bad. In all probability, a virus that spread across the entire earth should have destroyed us physically, mentally, emotionally, economically, and anything else you can come up with. But it didn't. In fact, many of us are still doing very well this year despite the emotional toll that everything going on has taken. Scientists are working on a vaccine for COVID. The world has accepted many difficult discussions that need to be addressed. Churches continue to meet online (and sometimes in person now) despite the circumstances, and many of us have drawn closer to God (myself included). People are realizing how important it is to care about one another. There's still a lot of arguing going on all over the place, but many people are doing their best to stay reasonable and help others in any way they can. We've learned things about ourselves and about the world; we might not have taken the time to look into so many things if we hadn't been semi-trapped all summer. No, God didn't cause COVID-19, and he didn't merely allow it either. He carried us through it, despite all our failures and shortcomings, and he even helped us to gain some wonderful things out of our suffering.

In conclusion, I present to you that the world is not ending. God isn't letting that happen.

Comments

  1. Olivia CombsOctober 24, 2020 at 7:47 PM

    Hey Girl! I got bored and started just looking at the GB Blog List and stumbled across yours. I just wanted to let you know I really enjoyed reading this and the insight you provided. SO many people could use a look at this. Hope you have a great day and keep up the good work! <3

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Erica Y.October 24, 2020 at 11:15 PM

      Hi Olivia! Thank you so much for checking this blog out, even if it was sort of by accident! I'm so glad you enjoyed this post. I've been asking around to get second/third/etc. opinions on my line of reasoning, so I'm super happy that it resonated with you! I hope you have a great day too (although I guess it's a little late to be saying "day" now lol)!

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