~ Authors Note ~
I know from personal experience that God doesn't hate people for questioning or doubting. He loves them just the same. (I know this because I have doubted.) And that love is greater than you could ever imagine. So please don't feel guilt. Continue walking with God and asking Him to lead you. He loves you. And that's a fact, Jack. ;)

~*~

We've all heard the sermons. Some would brand them as lies.

"You may have given up on God, but he hasn't given up on you."

Who says that he even cares? Especially at a time like this in my life. Where's the magical hand of God making things right?

"Jesus loves you no matter what."

Well, how can he expect me to love him no matter what when he lets these atrocities go unpunished. When babies are killed and abortion is legalized and Hitler and Mao Zedong slaughter innocents. Where is God then? What was he thinking when he told the Israelites to kill Amalekite babies and then turned around with the commandment "Thou shall not murder".

___

___

"All things work together for the good of those who love God."

How can my baby's death be 'good' for me? How can Hitler's massacres be 'good' for the world? How can anything evil we see today just be God doin' his job? I'm not sure if I like how God runs the world.

For these reasons, many people detest God.

Sam Harris put it the best:

"God can either do nothing to stop catastrophes, or he doesn't care, or he doesn't exist. God is either: impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick and choose wisely."

And so most people decide that God, if he is even real, could care less. If he's even real, he's just an angry God in the sky or a weak God incapable of even trying to fix the world.

However, C. S. Lewis stated, "Atheists express their rage against God although in their view, He does not exist."

Lewis wrote in his book, Surprised by Joy:

It begs the question if perhaps the blame is misplaced. If pain in this world is not God's fault, then why doesn't he just fix it?

There are many different angels on this, and a great book I recommend is by C. S. Lewis himself called The Problem of Pain. The title alone of that book really puts it perfectly. The problem is that we don't want pain and often feel like we can't handle it...so if God really can stop it, why won't he?

If you're a Christian, you've heard many of the sermons and lectures on this topic. They talk about how Adam and Eve first brought sin into the world, not God, and that God sent His son Jesus to pay for that sin. Why? Because- contradictory to atheists' popular beliefs- God actually is fair. God is without sin and we sinned. The simple solution to get us to Him was to remove our sin. So God did that in the not so simple manner of sending Himself to die on the cross for all mankind who was and is to come. Whoo! Major implications there. If God is faithful to the extent that He's willing to die and come back to life for us, He's going to be willing to go out of His way to help mankind.

Then why hasn't he, you ask.

Well, I just told you, my friend. God died for you.

What about the pain now?

We all have heard about heaven and the promise of eternal life, correct? But what about this earth? Is it just abandoned and left desolate? NO. God is going to reclaim the earth. That's what people are talking about when they say that God is making a new heaven and a new earth. The old ways and things of this world will pass away, but what replaces them will be an infinetly better version of them now.

So are we just left alone in the dust to deal with the mess we made?

Of course not! What kind of God do you think we serve? He's so good. I hope you can see that one day. God is allowing what's happening today and, yeah, he actually is planning to use EVERY little thing to our advantage.

I know this is a hard concept to understand. I've felt pain, too. I've been left in the dust and lonely and deeply depressed. I've gone through physical pain asking God, "How could you do this to me?". I am no stranger to pain.

Yet, these questions... Well, I still struggle with them. But I see things in light of eternity. If we get to live forever with God, and He will one day make everything right, than this little time on earth is just temporary. That's important to remember. Everything hear is temporary. God said something along the lines of, "This world will pass away but My words will not pass away." We, as humans that are both spiritual and physical, will leave this earth. And God will recreate everything and it'll be even more awesome than it sounds.

That's my hope: "that there will be a day of no more tears, no more pain, and no more fears" as Jeremy Camp puts it in his song "There Will Be a Day".

I know these are tough questions and the answers are even tougher. As the famous ancient philosopher, Socrates, once said, "I know that I know nothing." I'm not going to pretend to have it all together, and, chances are, there are questions you have that I won't know the answer to. But that's okay. Because I'm not God. But I do trust Him.