God's Heavenly Circle!

People always ask the question, "Why does God allow suffering?" This question has been answered by numerous people, numerous times ,yet it doesn't make any difference to the enquirer. Still they ask the same question. They are not convinced by the answers given.

So this hub intends to look at the question again, but answer it from a different perspective. First we must look at 'what if's and why's'.

What if God had provided us with Utopia at the beginning of the creation of Mankind?

What if he had made all peoples to be righteous, wealthy and prosperous from the time we were created?

Why did God not choose to do it that way?

Now atheists I hear you saying but we don't believe in God or that he created mankind! I dare say your belief is either evolution or the big bang or both. Either way your thoughts are that you came into being by accident or evolving from some other creature (how that creature was developed in the first place must have been a freak accident. So from these theories you probably have verbally declared you have come from nothing, therefore you die to nothing also. From this analogy you should not be reading this because you should be reading nothing! I am not being flippant but suggesting that you do actually believe in something otherwise you would not busy yourself trying to convince yourself or others that 'nothing' is the reason for your being! You certainly would not continually fight against Christians to prove that God doesn't exist unless you know that he does! My point is that most atheists know God exists they just don't want to know him personally!

The fact that you (referring to atheists readers) are reading this suggests you may be hoping someone will provide a logical answer to the questions. Keep reading because you might just find what you are looking for!

What if God had provided us with Utopia at the beginning of the creation of Mankind?

To answer this 'What if,' we need a starting point and where better than the book of Genesis - the beginning of our creation. Now you skeptics say "We started with the big bang" But you are questioning why God causes suffering, therefore you acknowledge God's existence, and by that you must accept that there is a 'beginning' and by that you must accept that the God you are questioning is the beginning!

So let us continue with Genesis.

God created mankind, a man and a woman. Now they were happily living in the garden of Eden as human beings, they ate food provided by God, they had everything they wanted, they did not have to work hard for their food, they spoke with God in the Garden, they 'walked with him', they felt no pain, cold, pressure, hardship or sickness.

Then God put a tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden and told the humans not to eat the fruit.

Prior to this he spoke to the other two (of the Trinity), Wisdom (Yeshua or Jesus) and the Holy Spirit (The Wind). God said, "they (Adam and Eve) must not learn about good and evil because if they do they will become God's like us!"

That must mean if they learn about good and evil they would become as knowledgeable as God himself! This also indicates that God and man are different! Man is not equal to God.

Adam and Eve were innocent and naive about the concepts of good and evil. They were unaware of sin, wickedness, wanting, greed, selfishness, lust, envy, pride, gluttony, disobedience, rebellion, whereas God was aware of all of these things.

Now this is the point where we will re-invent this situation. let us assume God did things differently. Let's say God did not plant that tree in the garden. And let's assume the serpent did not appear to Adam and Eve. What would have happened?

Adam and Eve would have continued with life as it was, they would have communicated and walked with God. They would eventually have had children where Eve would have had a painless childbirth and Adam would be at home to tend the children along with Eve because he had no cause to toil for their needs. All they had to do was ask God to provide their needs.

Eventually, Adam and Eves children would mature and they would have their own children. So the population would have increased.

God said to them " Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. "

There was another tree in the Garden, the Tree of life. But this tree was ignored by Adam and Eve.

Now God's garden, Adam and Eve's lifestyle; wouldn't you describe this as Utopia! This was the TREE of LIFE that God planted in the Garden. They had life in all its simplicity and charm, a delightful, peaceful, life without any worries or concerns-everyone's dream! Every one's Utopia!

If Adam and Eve had chosen that tree they might have acquired eternal life, but they chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil, hence life changed from Utopia to what we know it to be today a world of sinfulness, greed, violence, corruption, lust, adultery, idolatry, sexual immorality, murder. None of that existed in the Utopia.

We therefore have answered the first question, God did provide Utopia in the beginning. He did provide a place for us where we would not have suffering, where people would not starve to death, where innocent children would not be abused, where people would not be cruelly tortured because of their beliefs in a one true God. In the the Garden of Eden, there would not have been earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, famine, disease, terrorist attacks or wars!

God has already given us all the things we say a loving God should give! He has already provided us with peace and harmony and prosperity right there in the Garden. But it was not good enough for us! We desired more!

We have also answered the second question;

What if he had made all peoples to be righteous, wealthy and prosperous from the time we were created?

God did make us righteous,wealthy and prosperous right from the start of humanity!

The last Question, Why did God not choose to do it that way?

Again we have seen that he did choose to it that way!

So to answer the original question 'Why does God allow such suffering?' - it was our choice!

Mankind, through Adam and Eve's choice - opted for the tree of good and evil. That had implications - it meant we would have to learn about these things. It also meant that we would be exposed to the real world outside of God's protection.

Through our experiences outside in the real world, serpents and other evil would reign, effecting our lives in such a way that we continually make choices which hold consequences. If we choose good and reject evil we have the protection and the anointing of God upon our lives and we, through the act of being 'born again', become inheritors of everything God has. It comes to us through God's son Yeshua.

If however, we choose to follow evil then the opposite results can be expected.

God never intended for us to suffer such horrors we have experienced throughout the history of mankind. Humanity has become more and more evil, the reasons for this are not God's doing, but our choices as human beings.

Mankind may have become more civilised i.e. we eat at tables using knives and forks. But still mankind are performing corrupt and evil deeds and progressively more wicked than ever before! Even older people, who were raised in morally abiding christian households where Sunday schools were the norm, even they have resorted to swearing foul language you would never expect a 70 yr old to say, including blaspheming God's name! Even ordinary pleasant folk are happy with areas of wickedness in the world, which has become the accepted norm. Yet biblically these things are an abomination to the Lord!

We have brought this suffering on ourselves, mankind is at fault, and now we expect God to take the blame for it! Well I have good news for you! He has done just that!

Even though God did not cause the sin in this world, even though we have chosen greed, violence, wickedness and all manner of sin to invade this world and take over our lives, God has found a way to take it upon himself - as a scapegoat, to take on the sins and the punishment of death- and placed it on himself!

How did he do that?

By sending a part of himself - Wisdom (the second member of the Trinity -for simplicity of explanation) down to this world as his son to " Bring salvation to the Jews and the Gentiles".

His son came in the form of a male child so that he would grow into a man and know what it is like to experience pain and suffering as we have, so that he could then return to God through death and demonstrate to the world how God has provided a way back to the Garden!

In Ezekiel 47 and Revelation 22 it cross references to the future when we ,who love the Lord God and have accepted Yeshua as our King of all nations, shall once again return to the Garden - Israel! The land where God will place his throne! And we will again 'Walk with God'.

At the end of Ezekiel 48: 35 The words say, And the name of the city from that time on will be: The Lord is there".

Revelation 21 says: " Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer a sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God...."

In the book of Zechariah 14 It speaks of the day that is coming when the Lord will avenge those who have been hurt and persecuted. In verse 8 it also mentions the river in Revelation and Ezekiel, " On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the Western sea, in the summer and in winter."

At the end of the passage it says, " On that day 'Holy to the Lord' will be inscribed on the bells of the horses, and the cooking pots in the Lord's house will be like the sacred bowls in front of the altar. Every pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord Almighty, and all who come to sacrifice will take some of the pots and cook in them. And on that day there will no longer be a Canaanite(idolator- antichrist - antiGod etc) in the house of the Lord Almighty.

In Amos God says " In that day...I will repair its broken places, restore its ruins, and build it as it used to be, ... (Israel) ...The days are coming...I will bring back my exiled people Israel; they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them, says the Lord your God.

There is your answer to the question" Why did God allow the suffering in the world. Because We started it but God is going to finish it!" He has allowed the suffering to continue so that we might learn the difference between good and evil and choose which one to follow. Choose the right one and you will choose life! Choose the wrong one and you choose death!

We have the choice. We made the wrong choice before but we have the opportunity to make the right choice now!

There are many promises God is ready to bestow including the return to the Garden!