God, the Creator of Calamity
Isaiah 45:7: “I form light and create darkness,
I make well-being and create calamity,
I am the Lord, who does all these things.”
I’ve read all of the arguments by atheists about God and his goodness or lack thereof. Either evil exists because God cannot stop it or because He will not stop it. If He cannot stop it, then He is not omnipotent. If He does not stop it then He isn’t all good. Yeah, yeah, I’ve been through all of that, and it all misses the great point of our existence… it’s righteousness and the quest for it.
I am not going to write a detailed argument about righteousness, what it is, it’s not, whether God is or not righteousness. That isn’t my intention. Those arguments tend to find one audience… people who just see this all as foolishness and this as yet one more argument for them to pick apart. Apologetics isn’t my goal here. Explaining my belief to Christians with this as a question in their faith. They are my audience, and the explanation for our seeming contradictions in this world is my goal.
Basically, God wants us all to seek after Him and to be righteousness. He presents us will kinds of challenges. Calamity is a challenge in which our righteousness must endure. He wants it to, and wants us to win. There ages where war is righteous and ages where war is not. There are ages where righteousness isn’t a question of action, but of appearance. That is, how our actions reflect upon God to the world? Actions that reflect a righteousness in the world’s eyes one day will paint Him as mean and vindictive the next. All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. Paul met people where they were at. We are to do the same thing. If calamity is where people are at, it is so we can reflect God’s righteousness through it. Our own safety is secondary; rightousness is primary. Make righteousness your goal, or more specifically, let God’s righteousness flow through you to others around you, for them to receive, and you have done right, and your circumstances have served their purpose.
Now, atheists can make all of the arguments they want about whether God should work this way or not. They miss the point, and if you engage them so do you. Take those arguments and use them for an opportunity to be righteous before them… but not self-righteous! There’s enough of that in this world already. No, like Jesus did before the Pharisees and Sadducees, just respond in wisdom and truth, and then drop it. Some will receive it and some will not.