As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these things, He spit on the ground and made mud with the saliva. Then He anointed the man’s eyes with the mud and said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). So he went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:1-7 ESV)
Why? Why was the man born blind. Why cancer? Why child abuse? Why assassination attempts? Why devastating tornados and hurricanes? Why does God allow such things in the world?
These questions haunt us today, and they haunted the disciples as they passed by the man who was blind from birth. "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” The disciples understand the universe to be a mechanical thing, with cause and effect ruling everything. And God is the great Causer. Someone must have sinned for the curse of blindness to plague the poor man. Health is a sign of God's pleasure. Illness is a sign of His punishment of our sin.
But Jesus has a different take on why things happen in this world. “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him." The blindness happened. It was not caused by God to punish some unknown sin. And the blindness is a canvas for the display of God's glory. With that, Jesus spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, anointed the man's eyes with it, and told him to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. The man went and washed and came back seeing. The glory of God was certainly displayed in the life of the blind man that day.
The Living God is sovereign. He is able to do anything He chooses. Nobody and nothing can thwart His will being done ultimately. But from the beginning the Bible is clear that God limits His sovereignty with us humans to give us the ability and space to choose to love and obey Him, rather than being forced to. The tree of Life stood in the middle of the garden of Eden, and God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat its fruit. But they did. They chose disobedience, and sin entered the human race. (Genesis, chapter 3) Every one of us is infected with a fallen, sinful nature passed down through humanity since.
Many of the bad things that happen in our lives are the direct result of our own choices. My father smoked cigarettes for over 40 years, and ended up with lung cancer, which claimed his life at 69 years of age. God didn't do that to my dad. The cancer was the result of his smoking. I have spent much of my adult life eating too much and exercising too little, and my waistline shows it.
Some of the bad things that happen in life are the direct result of the choices of other people. Hackers steal the identity of an unsuspecting person and create a financial mess that may take years to rectify. A drunk driver crosses the center line and hits a car head-on, taking the life of an innocent teenager driving to meet her friends. Again, God didn't do those things to the people. People did them to the people.
Some of the bad things that happen in life are the result of the attacks of the enemy of our soul. Jesus took Satan both literally and seriously. He referred to him as the prince (some translations say "ruler") of this world. (John 14:30) Like Job, some of the bad things that happen in this world can be attributed to the attacks of the enemy. Since Satan is a fallen angel and invisible to us, it can be difficult to discern whether he is behind a particular evil event. But as surely as the devil urged King Herod to kill all the male children under 2 years of age when Jesus was born, he worked through the life of Adolf Hitler to try to exterminate the Jews during WWII.
Some of the bad things that happen in this world just happen. Our genetics are affected by the fallen conditions of this world, and this man is born blind. A neighbor asked me to mow his lawn a couple of weeks ago because his mower was being repaired. I gladly did so. I backed up after turning a corner to try to cut as much of the grass as I could in that corner, and backed into his privacy fence, displacing four slats from the fence. It was not some sinful choice of mine or the attack of the enemy that caused it. It was simple carelessness on my part. To prevent all such bad things from happening God would have to assert His sovereignty over everything, take away our freedom, and force us to do the right and good thing every time.
God could do that, but He doesn't. Why not? I am convinced it is because He made us in His image, with the power to choose. And God gives us the freedom to choose so we will freely choose to love and honor Him. Because love that is forced is not love, it is slavery. For love to have meaning, we must be free to choose to love or not to love. God longs for us to fill our lives with His love and live lives that love Him and love other people every single time.
God sent His Holy Spirit to indwell the lives of those who invite Him into our lives and choose to follow Him with undivided hearts so the Spirit can shape our lives in Holy Love to choose to love Him and others. He is, in fact, working to make the world the place of love and safety we all long for by working in our hearts to transform our sin nature into a God-honoring nature. One day, Jesus will return and God will fully establish His Kingdom of love and justice. He will right every wrong. And we will live in that Kingdom of peace (shalom) forever. In the meantime, we become beacons of light in a dark world, overcoming hatred with love and turning from sin to holiness.
Why, Lord? Why me? Why this? The questions still haunt us sometimes in our anguish. Let us not blame God for the things that hurt or haunt us.
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and He Himself tempts no one. (James 1:13 ESV) Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. (James 1:17 ESV)
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28 ESV)
In the midst of all the evil in the world, we have a good God who is working for our good and who gives every good and perfect gift from the storehouse of His grace. I choose to hang on to that when I am haunted by the bad things that happen in this world, and to keep on trusting the One who died for me to give me life. Evil is a reality in this world. I do not believe God causes it. It is His love for us that respects us enough to give us free will to choose to love Him, or not. And it is in choosing not to love Him that evil plagues us. I'll give Jesus the last word today:
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33 ESV)