Life Thoughts

The God of Good and Evil

Job is believed to be the first book written in the Bible. Yep, it was probably written before Genesis. Job 2:10 says the following:

(My paraphrase) "What. Shall we receive good things from the hand of God and not be willing to receive evil things as well."

At first glance this may not appear to be a real uplifting verse. But here is what I think it is saying, and in it, I believe, is a path of real peace:

God Is In Complete Control!

Complete Control. Everything is His perfect will. He sends the good and He sends the evil. God has no permissive will. Even Satan, however you view him, has to get permission from God before he can do anything. Not just some of the time. But any and every time.

This only becomes a problem if you believe God is going to fail to complete His perfect will. If you believe a large, or even a small part of His creation will be able to remain in their darkness, evil, sin, pain and death.

If, however, you believe God is going to be a complete success, (yes, even more successful than Rick Warren and Joel Osteen combined). And you believe that everything in God's creation is surely coming back to Him, cleaned, restored and bursting with life, then there is no problem. Everything that happened to Job; losing his children, all he owned, the respect of his friends and his wife and being covered with pestilent sores was God's perfect will for Job. Job knew all good and all evil comes from God. The good only shines bright against the contrast of the darkness of evil. And one second after being birthed into the Euphoric Presence of God all the pain of the world will make sense.

Always give thanks to God the Father FOR everything,

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

(Ephesians 5:20)