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But, if I am right in my conclusions to the above three questions, why is there so much around me that appears to point to them being wrong?

If God exists, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?

If the church is God’s will, how come their vigilance has led to atrocity after atrocity over many centuries?

If Christians are God’s people, how come so many of us appear self-righteous?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, and I do struggle with them, and from time to time they haunt me as doubts.

But I do know the following, as shameful as the admission truly is:

• That I spend more of my time concerned about my son not being out of step with the latest fad amongst his school friends, than I do about whether an unknown child is dying of starvation elsewhere
• That when I immerse myself in action films, I revel in the hero wreaking instant justice on the merciless baddies, without thinking too much about the consequence of his action, or the causes of theirs, and that I carry that same thinking through to news stories
• That I am personally far more prone to see other’s faults than I am to see my own

And I know that it is the collective impact of these very instincts/tendencies that lead to the problems listed above. And I also know that the biggest factor in keeping these things in check, and gradually dealing with them, is my relationship with God.

I don’t understand why God loves us, but I know that He does, and He loves us in a very similar way to the way I love my children. I want my children to grow up to be ‘good’ people and achieve their potential, and to feel fulfilled and happy, because I created them and because I love them. On occasion their desires pull them away from this, and onto a path that hurts themselves or others, and my wife and I do what we can to work with them to bring them back ‘on track’ (perhaps better described as not being ‘off track’). Sadly, sometimes they only learn by living with the consequences of what they have done. But we would never want them to be automatons. The existence of their ‘free will’ is actually more important to us than the implications of their abuse of it. And for some reason the same is true of the way God sees us.

So why doesn’t God show Himself more clearly?

Once again I don’t know the answer. But what I do know is that the force of my own character sometimes overwhelms my children. Sometimes they do what they do because of me, not because of them. And if the direct application of my personality sometimes does that to them – what would the direct application of God’s personality do to me? Would I still be the person He loves, or would I simply become a tool to do His bidding. When we truly love our children, they have to grow in their own right and not simply as extensions of ourselves, and that means that at times we have to make sacrifices as a result.

God exists! And problems exist because of the fact that He loves us, not despite it. And He paid a huge price to show us exactly that.

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