Evil. It’s real, it can be incredibly scary at times and it’s all around us.
Questions surrounding why evil exists in the world recently came up during a youth meeting at my church. It’s one of those topics that surfaces regularly, yet it can seem like we‘re never able to fully grasp the why.
Why does God, a creator who is said to be just and righteous, allow wickedness in the world? It doesn’t seem very fair, does it?
The truth of the matter is that it all started with us. Genesis 3 sees the beautiful story of creation take a damaging turn when Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit in order to be more like God (v4). There’s a real irony here, because human beings had already been created in the image of God;
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures above the ground.’” – Genesis 1:26
Not only were we created in the likeness of God, but He also gave us authority over the whole Earth. However, Adam and Eve were sold the lie that they could be equals with their own creator and their disobedience lead to a great separation between us and God.
Unfortunately, evil is a direct consequence of this. With Adam and Eve’s bad choices came a world infiltrated by sin, death and destruction (James 1:15)
The sin of the very first human beings is a clear reminder that God has given every single person free will and how we choose to live our lives is up to us. However, just like Adam and Eve back in the Garden of Eden, human beings, including our generation, have been making poor decisions since the beginning of time and this has resulted in the broken world that we find ourselves living in today.
Although, our world is currently nothing like God had intended it to be, the good news is that it won’t last forever. Revelation 21 speaks of a new Heaven and Earth, where there will be no more sin or death, where mourning, crying and pain will be a thing of the past and God himself will dwell among his people. Isn’t that insane!
With all that in mind, I encourage you not to dwell on how evil or corrupt or vicious the world may seem right now. Instead, know that a time is coming when all things wrong in the world will be made right for His glory, and focus on the things that you can do to honour God and point others to Him!
“Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.'” – Matthew 22:37-39
