Defending God

I’ve gotten into a bad habit lately of defending God. My obsession with defending Him is almost always in one specific area, and that is His goodness.

What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example- I often hear people say things like “God caused this to happen” or “God did this to me” or “why did God do….?” These statement almost always proceed a statement about some terrible event, deadly disease, or absolute tragedy.

I am more upset when I hear Christians say things that are lifted from the Bible in fragments that are absolutely disconnected from the context of the book they’re in or even the verse they’re in. Here’s an example that I’ve heard more than once “…we know that God causes all things…”. This is a misquoted allusion to Romans 8:28 and somehow is used to imply that when their is good or evil God is the author of it. In fact this verse says “we know that God causes all things to work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose.” Causing things- including tragedies- to work together for good is quite a different thing than causing all things to happen.

Let me give an example, I know a young man in the Central African Republic who lost both parents to AIDS when he was a boy. I don’t for a minute think that God caused the death of his parents. His parents died from a disease – disease was not part of God’s creation but came into the world when Adam fell. AIDS itself is also often contracted through illicit sexual activity or intravenous drug use. Sadly there are many others who contract the disease because of someone else's behaviors and are innocent victims.

As a result of this boy’s parents dying he was raised in a different home by Christians who taught him about the love of God and he eventually became a believer. Today this young man leads a class of children, many of whom have also been orphaned by AIDS.

God was able to use (not cause) this terrible situation and use it for His glory and to build this orphan into a man of God.

So do I need to defend God? No. He is more than able to defend Himself. Yet I will continue to deliver a message (which is itself the very core of my defense) that a dear friend taught me- “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.”