It’s Okay to Have Questions About God
You’ve probably been wondering things like:
How can a good or loving God allow this to happen?
Where is God (or His goodness) in all of this?
Why has God–espeically if He’s good–caused these things to happen?
These are good questions to ask, and God welcomes questions.
He understands that this is a journey, and He welcomes that process like a good, loving, earthly father.
However, while no question is bad, the key to ultimately experiencing breakthrough and understanding God and the world as they truly are, is to discover the right questions to ask.
Or, to put it another way, the right perspective to have.
Because the key in this situation–and when understanding God’s true character in general–is to flip your current perspective.
You see, as humans who are getting to know God, our natural perspective is to judge God’s character by the world we live in.
In other words, we look at God through the lens of the world and our limited human understanding.
But what we need to do is focus on God’s true character first, along with related biblical truth, and see the world through that lens.
And what’s what we’re going to do in this post by looking at two biblical truths in particular.
1. God is Holy Love
That small sentence contains two very important foundational traits of God’s character: holy and loving.
Scripture clearly tells us that God is holy. To be holy means to be 100% set apart from evil or wickedness and only God is holy:
Psalm 99 (NLT): “Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy mountain in Jerusalem, for the Lord our God is holy!”
Psalm 92:15 (NLT): They will declare, “The Lord is just! He is my rock! There is no evil in him!”
Psalm 5:4 (NLT): “O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked.”
1 John 1:5 (NLT): “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.”
Notice how Psalm 5:4 clearly states that God doesn’t like or condone sin or wickedness.
Now, this doesn’t mean that God has promised to step into our fallen, sinful world and automatically fix every wrong–whether those committed against us or by us (because we are all sinners).
Jesus said this in John 16:33 (NLT): “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
God hasn’t promised to fix everything, but He has promised to be with us as we navigate our time here on earth. Why?
Because God loves us. In fact, God not only feels love for us, the Bible says that He is love:
1 John 4:16 (NLT): “We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.”
No matter what’s happening in our lives, we can trust God because He is holy and He’s the embodiment of love.
We can also trust Him because….
2. God’s Character Never Changes
When we look at God through the lens of our broken, sinful world instead of the other way around, we end up thinking that God is temperamental and ever-changing.
However, Scripture clearly states that God’s character never, ever changes:
Malachi 3:6 (NLT): “I am the Lord, and I do not change. That is why you descendants of Jacob are not already destroyed.”
Hebrews 13:8 (NLT): “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
Did you notice the emphasis in Malachi 3:6? God is clearly saying that they deserve a not-so-great response from Him. But because He remains the same, and also keeps His promises despite the actions and heart posture of His people, that doesn’t come to pass.
We see this time and time again in the Bible–espeically in the Old Testament.
When Adam and Eve chose to be more like God instead of trusting Him, thereby bringing sin and all its effects into the world, it changed everything.
Since the Garden of Eden, God has been dealing with sinful and broken people–including His chosen people. Again, in the Old Testament, we see the Israelites and His chosen people turn away from Him time and time again. (We see this in the New Testament as well, such as when Peter denies Jesus three times after He’s arrested.)
God is working with imperfect people who make some horrible messes. And yet, His character has always remained steadfast.
It’s been 2,000 years since Jesus walked the earth. And who knows how many years between the Fall and His birth. (I wish I had the number before me.)
That’s a long time for a holy God to deal with an unholy people. At any time, God could’ve just wiped His hands of us humans and left us to our own devices. Or wiped us from the face of this earth.
But He didn’t. Instead, He’s been faithful to His promises and sent His only Son to die in our place, for our sins, so that by accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior we would be seen as clean in God’s sight, thereby fully reconciling us to Him.
Because that’s what God wants–a relationship with us. Not to make our lives miserable. But so that we can live life the way we were meant to. And so we can find freedom, healing, hope, and a future unlike anything that we can build on our own.
And I’m speaking from experience. I come from a very abusive childhood and marriage. I am very acquainted with tragedy, pain, heartbreak, and long suffering.
But God didn’t cause those things to happen. Instead, He pursued me; wooed me; helped me to gain biblical clarity so I could understand Him and the world around me; healed me of old wounds; and over the years, has changed my life into something I never, ever thought possible.
God is Not the Author of Your Pain
Friend, if you take anything from this post, let it be this: God is not the author of your pain. He is the One who is waiting patiently for you to turn into His arms so He can love you like no one else can.
And because, as Jesus said in John 16:33, “ I have overcome the world.”
The world, the sin and abuses of others, Satan…none of those things are stronger than God and His love for you. (And I don’t say that lightly.)
To dig deeper into this topic, feel free to check out Episodes #107 and #147.