We’ve all heard the accusations against God, maybe even made some:
God has abandoned me.
If God is good, why is there so much pain in the world?
God doesn’t hear my prayers.
God has disappointed me.
God let my child die.
Even those who don’t believe in God somehow find a way to blame Him for all that is wrong in the world. They not only hate God, but also the very idea of God, any god to whom they would be accountable.
The Bible, of course, tells the whole story, or at least the parts we need to know. God created a “very good” world, but because the serpent persuaded Eve that God was not good, but had withheld good, she and Adam attempted to be gods themselves. Genesis 3:1-4
So the idea that things are God’s fault originated in the Garden, a seed planted by God’s archenemy, one who wants to see us miserable because he is miserable.
This is why the person of Jesus Christ is so important. Jesus says that anyone who has seen Him has seen His Father (John 14:8, 9), and John, in his very first chapter, tells us that Jesus has come to explain, or explicate, or expose the Father to us (John 1:5, 9, 18).
So instead of using our pain as the grid through which or with which we assess God, we should be using Jesus in that way. He has been sent for that very purpose, as God’s loving, compassionate representative, not to condemn, but save, the world (John 3:16, 17).
Jesus has a right to ask us to view God in this way because He entered into our pain, and took our own deserved suffering upon Himself. Now He walks with us, supporting us in our own suffering, forgiving our sins, and comforting us in our losses. So when we are tempted to ask, “Why doesn’t God DO something?” we need instead to thank God for what He already has done in Jesus.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Hebrews 4:15, 16