We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us

In the wake of yet another human tragedy involving massive injury and unimaginable loss of life, there will be countless calls for prayer...and much derision of prayer will accompany those calls. As in so many instances before this one, many will say "What good is prayer when these folks are dead?" Joining the chorus, others will repeat an age old question "If God is good, why would He allow such evil and suffering in the world?" Still others will characterize God as like the mean kid burning ants with his magnifying glass.

We would respectfully suggest that, while asking the questions is fine, the questions themselves miss a much broader (and deeper) picture. In his classic cartoon strip "Pogo", cartoonist Walt Kelly lamented the state in which we (humans) were leaving the world in the 1970s by tweaking a quote from the War of 1812; Kelly wrote: “WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." To put this in OUR context, God's not the problem in these moments of human tragedy...WE are. 

"Preacher, why would you say such a thing?" Three things must be pointed out here: first, clearly if God is in fact GOD, He CAN'T be the problem - what possible motive could He have for doing evil in a universe He created? God, through Christ's suffering and death on the cross, understands suffering better than any of us ever could, no matter what we've been through. Secondly, God left the matter of choosing good or evil to us - yes, He points out the difference between good and bad choices (and He even shows us the right choices to make), but He still leaves the choosing to us, His creation. He gave us free will; why would He undo what He's given to us (with instructions on its use) just because some of us don't like the choices others of us have made?

The third thing to bear in mind - and perhaps most difficult at times for us to wrap our minds around - is reckoning with the immensity of God the Creator. Pastor Tim Keller put it like this: "If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because He hasn't stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can't know." If we want to hear and understand God more - in order to understand the darkness we see in a brighter light - we must get out of our own head.

"My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine."   Isaiah 55:8