When addressing the topic of good and evil as it relates to the Sovereignty of God, we’ve begun to develop the gist of the objection. It’s really a perspective issue – man will simply never ever see things the way God sees them. This is why it’s so critical for us to know the character of God; both as revealed in His Word, and equally as important, as He reveals Himself in our walk. You’ll find that having a firm grasp of this concept not only helps us as believers when we endure trials, but more importantly, it helps us to help others when they endure trials.

If you haven’t seen “The Passion of the Christ” watch it. What was depicted doesn’t even scratch the surface of how brutal that day was and the suffering our Lord endured for … us. For you. For me. And it was pleasing in God’s sight; not because of what happened, but because of the eternal consequences of what Jesus’ suffering accomplished. Does flogging an innocent man so severely that he was unrecognizable as a man (Isaiah 52:14) and then nailing him to a cross until he died of suffocation six hours later sound like “love” to you? And yet to God it was the culmination of love (1 John 4:10). He gave us all he could give, my friends. Tears run down my face as I write this. I just cannot fathom this kind of love. It breaks me in two every time I think about it. Not only because of the sacrifice that was made, but because I know there’s nothing I have ever done to deserve that kind of love.

Bringing this back to the application of Isaiah 45:7 you see now that God doesn’t “create evil” in the sense that he wills evil to happen to us, but that he is sovereign over it – he uses it for his purposes. Natural laws can teach us spiritual truths. For example, you cannot have light without darkness and vice versa; the two co-exist to illustrate each other. In a similar sense it wouldn’t be possible to know what good looks like, unless we knew what evil looked like.

There’s a symbiotic relationship between the two. You see this dichotomy exist throughout the laws of nature – where two opposing forces cause something to occur. Like how an aircraft flies using differential air pressure in a principle we call “lift”. Or even in nature how a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon will not survive if it is helped out of its cocoon. The resistance forces fluid from the butterfly’s body into its wings, expanding and strengthening them. Without that resistance, the wings would remain weak, limp, and unable to support flight.

In the events concerning man, the events themselves are not always good. I lost my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, my niece and my nephew over a very short period of time. I can tell you – it wasn’t good.

I conducted all of their eulogies – not because I wanted to, but because my family knows I believe what I say I believe – they’ve examined me for over two decades; they’ve had plenty of time to know that I may be many things, but by the Grace of God, I’m not a fake. All of this happened while I was personally enduring one of the most difficult 4 years of my life; which my family knew nothing about. It was just me, God, my wife, and my precious dog. It was a time when everything was pitch black, when every day I could only see enough to take the next step in front of me. Sometimes, it was all I could do to just get out of bed in the morning. Even so, coming from a place on the other side of that trial, I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. That’s not to say I’d want to go through that kind of darkness again, but it is to say I came out of it knowing God as my Father and I came out better through all of it.

I came out of that trial hearing him clearer than I ever have in my entire life. And for the sake of knowing him and his ways, it was worth it. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. So, from my perspective although what happened was really tough and a lot of “bad” things happened, from God’s perspective it pleased him to bring me to the place knowing ahead of time where I would be after all of that passed and I’m certain it was even more pleasing to Him knowing all of the people that I have been able to lift up and encourage because of what I had to walk through. That is the gift that never stops giving – it is amazing to see the darkest faces brighten when I get to share the hope that I now have as a result of drawing so close to Father during that time.

The question I’ve asked concerning trials like that is “Couldn’t we have come to this happy place without having to go through all of that?”

Perhaps, but if I had to speak for myself, I doubt it. I see trials a lot like resistance training: it’s not pleasant, but it’s necessary for building strength. The Lord once spoke to me about this and said “Steven, how can a solider fight if he's never been in battle?” Romans 5:3-5 says “3 And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Notice the end result of persevering through trials and tribulation? It’s hope. Hope in what? Hope in God. A steadfast trust in Him. An expectation of God based upon who He is. We know that despite all that we go through, God is absolutely trustworthy and more importantly, that He loves us. Being assured of that love is everything in a trial. Love is the ultimate basis of everything God does – even when we don’t understand what we’re going through at the time. In the next installment of “Good and Evil”, we’ll examine some lessons out of the Book of Job that are invaluable to developing our understanding of what I call the “Perspective dilemma”. Stay tuned!