Finding Good in the Midst of Evil
Posted on Oct 02, 2019 by Shari Van Baale
Habakkuk 1:1-4 (NRSV)
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous —
therefore judgment comes forth perverted.
I know we typically write about the Gospel reading in Staff Trax, but this week’s Old Testament reading attracted my attention more because it is from the book of Habakkuk. I don’t know about you, but that is not a book of the Bible that I am very familiar with. After doing some research, I found that little is known about the man named Habakkuk. In fact, Wikipedia said less is known about him than any other writer of the Bible.
Yet, his words are just as true today as they were when he wrote them in the mid-to-late 7th century BC. We all struggle to understand how God can allow such evil in the world. From natural disasters to the horrors caused by man, many people can lose their faith and wonder why God lets evil happen.
I am not Lutheran, so please pardon me if what I write is a little different than Lutheran theology, but I believe that God is able to prevent evil from happening, but He has also given us free will. When evil was introduced into the Garden of Eden, God allowed evil to enter the world. When He created the world it was a perfect, tranquil place, but that was not meant to be.
When bad things happen in the world, it is easy to lose faith in God. A common question is how God can allow so much evil and suffering among His people. When bad things happen, we might not see the reason behind it right away, or even while we are still on earth, but as Paul said in Romans 8:18 (NRSV), “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.”
Shari Van Baale
Communications Coordinator