God wants us to choose to have Him
live His life within us -- to think as He thinks and feel as He feels
-- to hate that which is hurtful and evil and to love that which is
helpful and good.
Why? Because for us
that is the richest most fulfilling life we can have. Our
best interests are always foremost in His mind. His goodness
in us must be a matter of choice -- of choosing a relationship with God
in which His mind and heart become our mind and heart.
Without the element of choice to do that you cannot have
goodness. You might gain compliance with law and the fear of
consequences for breaking that law, you might gain compliance with
either negative or positive external pressures to do the "right"
things, but goodness is a matter of the heart, of our motivation, of
our values and choices. It's internal. It cannot be
created by external pressures. The absence of evil in our
lives gets us to point zero, it does not equate with goodness. Goodness
-- love -- is positive action directed towards others motivated in us
by God's Holy Spirit.
So why does God let bad things
happen? Because we can only have His goodness in us if we
also have freedom to choose, and His goodness in us is His desire for
us because it's for our good.
Certainly another reason is so we can
clearly see what is evil and what is good -- so we can evaluate the
results of bad choices and of good choices to the end that we make
choices that are in the best interests of the family of man as a
whole: of others interests and of our interests.
When we see others' lives painfully and abruptly
terminated or fellow humans hindered or handicapped by injury and
disease, it helps us appreciate the value of life and look forward to
the wonderful and joyous eternal life without pain and suffering that
Jesus offers us. Seeing others die prematurely or suffer
because of handicap, injury or illness also bring us up short when we
consider the uncertainty and brevity of this human life. It
reminds us of our need for God in our lives -- for a relationship with
Him in which we are blessed by Him because he is FOR us. |
