Y Not I

And the L-RD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he has is in your power; only upon himself put not forth your hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the L-RD. – Job 1:12

We were studying about generational sin and part of the subject was God allowing bad things to happen to a believer, to allow them to be attacked. It was questioned as to why that would be allowed. After all, would a loving parent allow their child to be attacked. The verse from Job above is a precursor to terrible things happening to Job, that the God approved of. It is certainly an interesting question and one I had to think over.

First of all, I do think God gives us a great deal of latitude while still providing us His protection. I think of it as being allowed to play in the backyard. The kids can go anywhere in the backyard and there is some stuff there that is dangerous, but nothing too dangerous that is likely to quickly kill the children playing there. There is a fence so there is a boundary as to how far the children can go. I heard someone else use the analogy of a river and that we can side to side in the river, but are bound by the banks of the river to continue flowing down the river. While both of these are good ways to illustrate the free will that God provides to His creation, it does not explain why He would allow attacks to come upon us. That would be like allowing an attacker into the backyard.

As I thought about it, I tried to think of situations where maybe an attack can be a good thing. It occurred to me that body building is about attacking the muscle tissue, that by lifting the weights and putting strain on the body, that the body reacts and builds the muscles up stronger so that next time they will not break down under the same load.

Then I thought about getting a shot, an immunization. It seems that is basically allowing a small attack into our bodies, so our bodies build up the strength to fight off a large scale attack. Now I am no expert in either muscle growth or immunizations, so if I am mistaken in any way, please correct me, but it seems that these are two examples of attacks that we allow in our society for the good of individual. Weight training is generally seen as a good thing and certainly immunization against disease has been a good thing.

So maybe it is more like God allows attacks, but those attacks themselves are controlled, so that the attacker allowed into the backyard is only can promote a limited level of danger. And this is done to help us getting better, get stronger and be able to resist greater attacks. If this thought process follows through, then God is providing a service of growth when He allows us to get attacked. So while the attack might feel bad and be tough to go through, it seems like it is nothing when compared to not having the attack and going through what might be coming (1 Thessalonians 5:1-10).

I guess this might be why Scripture says to count it as joy when we are under trials (James 1:2-4).