God, Did You Allow This To Happen To Me?

How many times have you heard it said "If God is a God of love, why did He let this happen?" 


It seems every week we are seeing new tragedies of historic portions! How can so much pain and suffering be endured? 


I look at the people of Japan, (calm, patient, disciplined people)... eight days after a 9.0 earthquake,  20 foot tsunami walls of water, a nuclear meltdown and can't help but wonder WHY?  


We are increasingly seeing what some are calling the greatest disasters in the history of the modern world. It seemed just a short time ago tens of thousands of Haitians were dead, buried in the ruble of cement buildings that crumbled in an earthquake. Sadly, the news of war, riots and enormous disasters are getting worse, not better.

During times like these, it is not unusual for people who never consider God to asked God-sized questions: "How could this happen?", "Why did this happen?", and "Who can help these suffering people?" When people come to the end of their rope, they turn to God. However, this turning does not always mean they are seeking to know the Creator. Horrific disasters illicit anger and hinder one's belief in an all-knowing, all-seeing, all-capable God.

The same holds true for people who have been abused by those they should have been able to trust. The very ones who were to love and protect them, inflicted unspeakable wounds. It is impossible to recover from abuse and trauma without asking this question, "God, did you allow this to happen?"

It may not be those exact words. Many variations have the same meaning: "God, why didn't you stop it?", "God, how could you weave me in my mother's womb knowing  what would happen to me?", "God, why did you give me those parents?", "God, why didn't you help me?", "God, how could you have watched?", or "God, where were You when I was being abused?" The questions are almost endless and difficult to hear.

Isn't this the big question that is so hard to answer?  I cannot tell you how many times I have personally asked this. Not in a complaining, whining, poor me way, but in a honest searching quest of wanting to better understand God and my life.




First, you need to know it is not wrong to ask such questions. God created you. He knows your thoughts and feelings. He feels your joys and pains and wants to help you. He is not playing a big game in the sky just to see what might happen, and He is not too distant or too busy to care about each and every detail of your life.

From our earthly perspective we cannot understand how intricately God weaved all of the events of our lives into His purpose and our good. However, we need to ask the hard questions, and listen to the answers that can be found in the Bible. No one knows the mind of God. The only way we will ever be able to ever begin to understand is to turn to His Words, not people's thoughts or conclusions (however, sometimes people help us understand what God is saying through His word.)

This is one question the world can never answer. They can tell you it was not right or you should feel angry and hurt. They also can tell you the abuse is the cause of your suffering, but they can't make sense of how horrific traumas can be used for good. 

God created humans with a very unique ability. Listen to the words of Joshua, "And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served...or the gods of the Amorites...But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:15 NKJV). God made humans with the ability to make a choice, exercising a free will. We are not born under coercion, forced to obey God's principles like a programmed robot.

The person who abused you had a choice to make, just as each living soul does on earth. Romans 2:20 says, "For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, ..., so that they are without excuse...". No matter how they came to the point of abusing you, what happen to them personally or how they might have been poorly raised or abused, they are responsible for their actions.

And because we all have free will, God does not force any of us to stop doing evil. Likewise, He does not use coercion to make humans obey His will. God doesn't divinely manipulate an abuser's actions, just as He doesn't plot and control your daily actions. We were created with a freewill (the ability to choose) because God wanted us to choose Him out of love, not being compelled to obey Him but freely desiring to be reconciled to Him.

Even if your abuser was drunk or mentally ill, they were aware of the affects of their actions, when they awakened from their stupor or separation from reality. God sees everything, and He is the avenger of the abused. We, who have been abused, need to rest in the covering of an all-knowing, all-mighty God.

We should be assured that no sin will be left unpunished. God wants us to leave the punishment to Him. He will avenge for abuse. If the abuser confesses the sin in repentance, the abuser receives the atoning grace of forgiveness that is available to every living soul. We must trust God to justly deal with every sinner.

Our loving God redeems all evil, horrible acts of abuse committed against us, to be for our good by using each painful deed to transform our mind and to conform our heart to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. This is how God can redeem the years stolen by the locus and work all things together for good to those who love God, to those who answer the call to His purpose in life. (NKJV Romans 12:2, Romans 8:28-29, Joel 2:25)

Redemption is the answer to this hard question. We are all wicked sinners apart from God's redemption; and it is only through redemption, that anyone can begin to understand healing available to everyone, even the perpetrators of abuse. 

These hard questions arise even from the devastating power of natural disasters; all victims of horrendous tragedies need our prayers and to seek God's answers for complete restoration. 

Only to looking to God can we make any sense of these questions.  We can't just look though, we have to know Him, and this is not a casual glance. To know Him is to desire Him above everything else... even above our life itself. Healing will come and so will deeper understanding, but first we must walk out in faith, looking up into His eyes knowing He alone is trustworthy. He is the only source of all good, all health, all sanity... and there is only one way to enter into a knowing relationship with God.

We must become a disciple, a follower of, an imitator of, the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, I know how cheesy that can sound when you have lived in a world the teaches lies or truth and truth is make-believe. But in the end, the choice is YOURS. There is nothing as real, solid, knowing or certain as Jehovah God... but only you can take your step of faith. I can't do it for you... not even God can do it for you. 


You must wrestle with all you know, all you have been told, all that you sense in the deepest center of your being... if you seek God, you will find Him... and not in doubt, questioning your choice, but in sureness - knowing God will teach you and show you... how He will use what happen to you for good, for your good and for His glory. Only in His Kingdom can horror, tragedy and all wickedness be exchanged, transformed by His love, into joy, strength, blessings and goodness beyond compare.


Can you begin to see? Do you want to believe?