It’s the age-old question—if God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, why does evil exist? How can He let it go on?
It’s the age-old question—if God is all-powerful, all-good, and all-knowing, why does evil exist? How can He let it go on? The existence of evil is one of the most challenging aspects of Christian faith. Yet, the question hinges on assumptions about God, ourselves, and the world around us.
Do you have a question you'd like us to answer? Email us at podcast@austinstone.org.
All right, friends, welcome to another episode of Questioning God, a podcast series from the Austin Stone that is following through our study of the book of Habakkuk.
This season, we're following the prophet as he asks deep and sometimes even brazen questions to God, and we're considering how those honest prayers and difficult questions might actually build and not tear down our faith.
I'm your host, Val Hamilton, and I'm joined again, another one, another ride, with Tyler David and Ross Lester, two men who lead and shepherd our church so faithfully and with joy.
So thank you guys for being here to talk about the very simple and light topic of evil.
Yes.
Right?
Yep.
It's no one's favorite topic to discuss, but it's obviously a reality and a problem we see all around and even within ourselves.
It's something that when people think about God and belief in God can be a chief thing that keeps them from faith in him.
And so it's a good conversation for us to have as we see Habakkuk bring his second complaint to God.
He says, why do you let my eyes see injustice?
Why do you tolerate evil?
And again, questions that are so common even today that he asked thousands of years ago.
And so let's just start kind of from the beginning and look at church history.
How has church history given us a way to understand and interpret the evil in the world and the forms that it can take?
Yeah.
Thanks, Phil.
I mean, it is a struggle to answer the why, which we'll get to in a second.
The how of the ongoing operation of evil has been answered throughout church history in three broad categories, right?
that we see from scripture that basically that you see evil perpetuating and manifesting through three categories, the flesh, the world and the devil.
And I think in different eras of the church, we focused on different areas of those three.
And perhaps maybe in the current era of the church, we don't focus on any of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But those three areas are really helpful for you to understand how this continues to happen.
So if you start with the flesh, you can't depersonalize evil.
There's a brokenness that happens within each of us.
Right.
And none of us can deny that.
Now, obviously, I think in our tradition, we don't do ourselves a favor where we pretend there aren't degrees to that.
Of course, there's degrees to that.
Right.
In terms of what those intents are and what those actions are that come.
But all of us have these broken desires within us.
Right.
And that manifests differently in different people.
But then there's also the world, which is the systems that we build out of those broken flesh.
Yeah.
Right.
And so it shouldn't surprise us that we build systems that aren't godly.
Right.
And that even sometimes when trying to do good things are just fallen and broken and distorted because they come from the flesh and the power of the flesh.
And then they build the system around us, which is the world.
Right.
And the danger that Eugene Peterson says is that the world is proteion.
In other words, it's all around you all the time.
So sometimes you can't even tell what you're looking at.
Yeah.
Right.
That's the kind of water that you swim in.
And so you can't understand necessarily how the world is operating and the lies that it's telling and in the context of the community that you're in.
Then the third is the devil.
Right.
And we shouldn't undermine his work.
That actually the scriptures do speak of there is an enemy of God who's basically fueling the desires of the flesh and the broken systems of the world.
And he kind of gives those energy and ideas and action.
And that helps me actually understand some of the base and broken things and unjust things that we see in the world through those kind of three categories of evil manifestation.
And I think it's worth saying that's how the church has viewed them.
Those are all biblical categories.
One hundred percent.
And it's interesting how depending on personality, depending on background, one of those resonates with you more than others, you know, and how it's easy to even pit those against each other and that they end up one being more so than the other.
But there is actually that biblical framework helps us look at all of it and go, it's probably one of these three all the time.
They're all interacting.
Right.
They're playing with each other.
But I just as you were talking, I was like, I hope people, we all know, like those are biblical categories.
No, no, one hundred percent.
These aren't just church traditions.
Yeah.
That's exactly right.
They're formed by scripture.
Yeah.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, and I think when we reduce it, right, to just an evil out there, right, to something that needs to be squashed, it's not within us.
I think a lot of people ask the question or wonder, why doesn't God just squash evil entirely?
Why doesn't he annihilate the presence of evil when it rears its head?
Right.
And I think to your point, maybe that's something that we need to consider is what would become of all of us if God made that decision.
Right.
Right.
Well, and part of it, too, when you start asking questions about evil and who decides what it is, like even Habakkuk's complaint, he's coming from someone who has the Torah, someone who has the Old Testament.
He has categories for evil and injustice that are based on the character of God.
And I think, again, in our context, when you're in, when evil is staring you in the face and you're asking the questions and you're complaining about your side of it to God, so often, again, borrowing from Tim Keller, as is my custom, is you borrow from God's categories to critique him.
Yes.
So I'm using the actual standards of evil and injustice that I got from God in the scriptures that humans matter, that you shouldn't just devour weak people.
You shouldn't just do whatever you want.
Totally Judeo-Christian ideas.
It's all from him.
Yeah.
But I use him to critique him.
Yeah.
And I think, again, it's worth saying that most of what we see in the world, especially in our context, as evil, there are different cultures and different generations that may not have seen the same thing.
They would look at the same circumstances and go, in my culture, in my context, that's fine.
And so I think, again, what I love about the Old Testament prophets is what they're taking is the Old Testament law and promises and applying them to what's in front of them.
I have a standard that God has set in place, and now I see that standard not happening.
Where is God?
Yeah.
Instead of it feeling like, oh, there is no...
He's not saying that there is no God.
He's just saying, where are you in the midst of this evil that I'm getting from you?
To even define it.
So I think it's worth saying that before we get into application in different people's lives, I need to recognize that where am I getting those standards from?
Even the concept of injustice.
Even the concept of injustice.
Where do I get it from?
Yeah.
And it's going to be so helpful in the study of the book as well, because God just redefines the prophets categories as well, because he's going to complain about the injustice in Israel, right?
And God's covering those people.
And then God's going to go like, I'm going to use the Chaldeans or the Babylonians.
Then he's going to go like, no, no, they're the real problem.
And God's just going to continually redirect him on who the real problem is without ever giving anyone a pass.
He's going to go like, oh, no, I see the evil there.
You're right.
And I'm going to judge it this way.
Oh, and I see the evil there.
And I'm going to judge it this way.
Right.
But Habakkuk and the rest of us don't get to have a pass of like, oh, no, the evil is something just out there.
That's right.
Just contained in one manifestation of people.
Right.
And that's where it's a little bit more complex, too, is because unlike the last episode, we're talking about physical pain and suffering.
You could do everything right and still get physical pain and suffering.
Yeah.
Evil, there's human agency in this, too.
Right.
That it gets, I think, convoluted is probably the right way to kind of parse out back to the flesh, the world, and the devil.
You have those three factors happening all the time.
And yet somehow God is sovereign over all of it.
That's right.
He sees all of it.
He's the only one that sees through.
I mean, I have, this has been part of just even growing up and you start realizing like, oh, there are layers to people that I don't see.
There are layers to myself that I don't see.
Oh, yeah.
Like I thought my intent was one thing.
Turns out it was different.
I thought it was courage and really it was fear.
I thought they were something and they're not.
And so it's hard to even make decisive judgments in situations all the time without God's word because I can't see through everything.
And so even through the prophets, God's giving them an eye to see.
Because the more that you see of how deep the deception and sin goes, the more you realize, back to back to his complaint, how do you look at all this evil and not do anything?
Because I'm seeing it, just a glimmer of it.
And when I really see more of it, that's why it's hard as you get older, not to get bitter and jaded and cynical because you're like, things I thought were one thing aren't that thing.
And so, again, when it comes to evil in the world, there's so much human agency in it.
A podcast that me and Ross love called The Rest is History.
I mean, every historical thing you're studying, you're like, it just gets darker and more deceptive and broken than I knew before.
Learning more about it just gave me more sad information about it.
But that is just the nature of staring at the world for what it is, especially if I want categories like human beings matter, you should be caring, you should be servant heart, all the things that we borrow from God.
Right.
We've even seen God in Scripture look at the world in Genesis 6 and see that the intention of man was only evil continually.
And the way he deals with that is sending this great flood, right?
But obviously we see when that happens, it didn't solve the problem of evil again because the people he saved still had sin natures that the world, the flesh, the devil were all still there.
So I think this isn't an annihilation.
We have to kind of be careful what we wish for because, again, we are the problem.
We are contributing at least to the evil that's present in the world.
And it's like it's not something you can wash away or annihilate.
It's resurrection, right?
That's where it changes.
And it's interesting how we want God to be impartial with other people but then partial to us.
Yeah.
We're like, I mean, typically it's justice for them and mercy for me.
It's like their situation is super easy and they need to give justice.
But when you get to me, like, well, I have a childhood and my story is complicated.
You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You can't – I can't want justice and evil dealt with out there.
And then when God gets to me, be like, well, but take it easy because what if his standards mean I'm just as much at fault as the evil that I see in the world?
Or at least the more maybe nuanced way to say it, every evil I see in the world, the seed of that is in my flesh.
It may not be manifest at the same degree.
That's right.
Like it may not be a full-grown forest, so to speak, of the sinful patterns and behavior.
But that acorn, that seed is actually in my flesh.
And if watered and nurtured enough in the darkness, it could produce the same sort of result.
But that's an indicting thing to admit and a hard thing for you to stomach when you're – because, again, it feels like it may minimize the evil you're seeing.
It's like, no, it just explains how does this relate to me.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's why the cross of Christ, I mean, not to just Jesus-joke the whole thing.
Right.
But that's why it's so helpful because it's the one place in which you get to have both of your demands met.
Right.
There's judgment and justice, and there's also grace and mercy.
And just this collision in the person and work and sacrifice of Jesus Christ is so compelling because it's giving us the very things that we want.
We want to know that God sees the injustice in the world.
But how does he deal with it?
He submits himself to one of the most unjust empires that's ever lived.
And he's tortured in a mock trial, you know, like and just submits himself to what looks like the gears of wicked history.
But in that is kind of retelling the story and remaking.
Yes.
But is saying, oh, no, I pay attention to justice and it matters to me.
But he's also giving us the grace, which means that we won't have to be chewed up by that same justice.
That's exactly right.
And it's just it's so it's so glorious and so helpful.
Well, I do think it kind of returns back to the question we asked about suffering, where if God could remove it, why doesn't he?
Right.
And then in the same vein, I remember feeling this, you know, like I mentioned in our last episode, I came to Christ in high school and then came to this church, really grew up here in my faith in college.
And I remember the pastor, Halimsa, the reverend.
The bishop himself.
The bishop himself.
Yes.
I had a conversation with him really early on where I was just trying to understand, like, why, when God saved his people, didn't he just remove the evil?
Like, wouldn't it have been better to not tarnish his name, to be a better manifestation of the kingdom, to be this true city on a hill that we want to be, the saltiness like preserved?
Why do we continue and persist in our own evil and sinful natures, even somewhat while we're here?
And he's, of course, he spoke to me in a parable, as he often does.
It's a way to really make his message cryptic.
Yeah, yeah.
I received it.
But it was, at the time, we were neighbors living in Manor.
And he, instead of answering my question just directly, he was like, let me tell you, imagine if Malachi, we had an entire, Malachi's his son, obviously.
But imagine our yard was entirely filled with leaves.
And Malachi's, I told Malachi that I wanted to clean up the yard of all the leaves.
He's like, how would you tell him to go about it?
I was like, well, I'd give him a rake and I'd give him some bags and I'd have him rake them up and deal with the leaves.
And he's like, that's one way you could do it.
But what if, instead of using a rake, I had Malachi individually pick up every single leaf and throw it in the trash?
He was like, both of those would result in the yard being clean.
But which one of those trains Malachi's heart to hate the leaves?
And there was something about the reality that like, oh, there must be something about God that cares, not just that we not sin, but that we feel about our sin the way that he feels about it.
That we learn to see sin for what it is and the evil in the world for what it initially presented itself in the garden that we missed.
That there's some training through continually having to come and be confronted with our struggles and our sins and our repentance to go before God and say, I'm learning to feel about this the way that you do.
Little did you know that's exactly how Halim made Malachi do it.
Yeah, he's like, this will work out for the analogy.
He really hates it.
I was just thinking my neighbor would just use a leaf blower, which is its own category of evil.
Yeah, just blow it right into the wind.
Yeah.
That's so good.
But it does show to back to that kind of with human suffering, that being human suffering actually being the second step after sin.
Yeah.
The sin, suffering comes in the world after sin enters the world.
That's right.
And it goes back to that sort of God has made creation in us to be so good that to introduce any notion of him not being as valuable and beautiful as he says that he is, it produces this evil that is so irrational.
Like when you start saying what evil, like even our own personal evil, when you try to like usurp somebody or gossip about them, you're like, it actually undoes the very thing you thought it would do.
Like it is an irrational behavior.
And it shows that sort of like the nature of sin is to be self-deceiving.
It is to blind me to my own sort of ways.
It's hurting me in the process, but better to feel strong and in sin than weak with God in a way.
Like it makes me feel God-like.
I get to decide.
I get to set boundaries.
And it just erodes us in such a pronounced way that I think there's something about it that's teaching us about God's character.
Now, again, it's hard to say all the sort of every specific evil thing, how it does.
But there is some macro level thing that goes back to what we're talking about with Jesus being the – Jesus is consistently with in every prophet and every psalm and everyone that's asking those hard questions about evil in the world.
He is going to be the thing that unlocks it.
Right.
Because he is going – something about sin is showing off how deep – how great his grace is.
That's Ephesians 1.
To the praise of his glorious grace.
There's something about it that's showing off how much Jesus is going to accomplish and how much he's suffering.
And that does feel like it's at the heart of it because the main thing happening that's unfolding in human history is God revealing the totality of who he is in full character.
And so there's something about a God that doesn't just love us when we are not evil, but that he would love his enemies, that he would – that there would be – that it just goes to the depth of his love and the grace of his love.
That's how much he loved people who didn't wrong him.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But how deep his sacrifice and how wide that is.
There's something about God's nature that he wants to – he's about communicating a point than doing it in the most efficient way.
I mean, that's Exodus 9 with the plagues when he's judging sin in Egypt.
He literally says, if I want to do this immediately, I could have wiped you out.
But I'm trying to communicate that you know that I'm the Lord kind of idea.
There's something about the process of the plagues that is communicating something.
He's not – I think we view him as like an efficiency expert.
Like be efficient in the most like one-to-one sort of way, but Exodus 9 is him looking at Pharaoh and going, if I wanted to be efficient, this is the least efficient way to do it.
I just end it.
Yeah.
But I'm teaching it so that you would know that I am distinct.
I am holy.
No one like me.
And I think for us was we're both, again, the different categories of evil like done by us, done to us, done around us.
Right.
I need – I do need – the church does need different categories and different kinds of language to interpret each of those things.
But overall of it, there's a God who is weaving together purposes to – that's your point of like teaching us something.
But he's a God who speaks and he has a point to his speaking.
That's right.
But it's – the way – I mean we've all been in it both personally but especially as leaders in our church.
There's something about staring at evil that staggers you where it's like I didn't – I don't want to believe things can be this dark.
I want to believe we need help.
But not this much.
But not to this degree.
Right.
And I think it's easy when you're going through times of bliss to think, well, things are basically good and got a little out of whack.
And then you look at certain dark moments in people's lives.
You're like, I don't know how to explain this.
And even sometimes even like on – this is where it's the spiritual reality of Satan and demons kind of things.
It's like how do certain human beings get to that level of darkness?
Gravity, yeah.
There is something to it that's an explanatory power to me to go, that does make sense of – because mental health is a thing and mental illness is a thing.
All those things are true.
The world's broken and yes.
But there's still a level of darkness that we can get to here.
It's accelerated.
And again, I think as leaders in the church, there are times where we get to – there's like privilege and things to steward in being a church leader.
And one of them is you're staring at dark things and you have to steward those moments really, really well.
And they're hard to make sense of.
But there's something about it that God's communicating something that's not always clear, but he does have – there's some point coming.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, and as we even talk about it, it's not out there.
How do you – how do we encourage listeners, people with our church who want to be honest about looking inside and confronting the evil first within them?
Like what is that kind of self-awareness and vulnerability?
How does someone pursue that in their life?
The honesty that it takes to look at yourself and start with you, right?
Not to say – not to dismiss evil out there, but to start with the evil within.
I think you've got to have a good view of the gospel, right?
You've got to be gospel fluent is a term that we've used a lot.
It needs to be the language that naturally comes from you.
If you're going to have a good look at yourself without either viewing yourself with pride and hubris or with absolute condemnation and self-destruction and despair, you're going to need to have a view of how God feels about you, how he's made you, how much he cherishes you.
And how much power there is available through the Holy Spirit in you to change you.
That's right.
And to conform you to the image and likeness of Christ and the great cost that he went to win you, right?
And so if you have those lenses in with the gospel is centered, then you're able to have a realistic self-examination.
Yeah.
Where you can go, and here are the things that don't honor God.
Here are the things that may even be roots of evil in me.
And I can put those to death without having to destroy myself and without having to think less than God honoring things about myself in terms of how I view who I am.
I think that's the only way.
If you're going to look at yourself without the lenses of the gospel, then you're going to come to the wrong conclusions.
Well, and you can't hide, right?
I think that's when we try and hide those things from ourselves or maybe even from God.
But it's such a sweeter reality that God knows all of those.
He knows all of the things that if watered and if indulged, the seeds inside, what they would grow to.
And yet he saves us and he promises to change us.
It's such a sweet thing when you realize how deeply you need it for yourself.
Well, and truthfully, if grace isn't real, then why would you be honest?
What's the point of even doing introspection if I don't know there's grace on the other side of it?
And so I do think that's part of even the – again, to assess even what evil is, I need standards in the kingdom of God.
The chief standards are love God above all with everything I have, neighbor as myself.
Everything – I think this is part of it because sometimes we don't think we need grace because I'm not that bad.
Right.
Everything that falls short – Everything falls short.
So even – if I had a moment today that I didn't love God above all with everything I have, I've actually fallen short.
And that is evil because everything that is – again, back to the – I like using the seed to forest analogy because it gives you kind of – Sin is a category, but there's topography to it.
It's not flat.
Right.
And so there is a thing of like, okay, I don't see murder.
I haven't done – I haven't committed murder or adultery or whatever the big sin you think it is.
But have I loved God with everything I am above all?
Well, no, I can't say that.
Well, in God's – well, the way God sees the world, that's the beginning of how everything else gets to.
And we don't like that level because I don't think human beings like grace because grace makes me have to be dependent.
That's a temptation of sin.
Sin says you can have God's stuff and not be dependent upon him.
You don't have to be needy and humble.
You get to be God-like and have his stuff.
And again, when you're in God's seat without God's resource, you're going to get crushed eventually too.
But I think the level of working into myself, of where my sin is and what's driving it, there is the good news of Jesus can tell the truth about me and the hardest part of that and be able to meet me in it and give me grace enough that's bigger.
That doesn't – actually grace that forgives me and then changes me.
That's what I love about even the way the gospel works.
Grace is not just a thing that forgives me.
Grace is a power to make me feel more beautiful on the other end.
And I mean that's where I think you – it's hard to look at social evils in the world.
It feels like the only way to tell the truth about social evils in the world is to feel like I'm better than them.
It's really – it takes a lot more courage.
It just takes a lot more courage to be like, dude, I'm part of this human economy and system and I'm part of the problem and that's still wrong.
Yeah.
It feels like the only way I can get enough bravery to say something is evil is to think that I'm not.
To distance yourself.
And I'm like it takes way more courage to go, I'm broken and busted and have sinned in different kinds of ways and I can still say that's wrong.
And this isn't okay.
But I've just found we have a really hard time telling the truth when we're in an emotional four and five.
I have to be like frothing a little bit to tell the truth about evil in the world.
Yeah.
Instead of being able to go, I'm well acquainted with it because it's in my soul and it's in me and there's grace for me.
And that's where mercy – justice and mercy is a hard thing to steward.
But I think the church has got to do a good job of going, what does it mean for justice and mercy to be in how I view the world, not just one or the other?
And I think the only way to get acquainted with that is through the justice and mercy applied to me over and over again every time I have to go to God for confession and repentance and belief in the gospel.
So I think it's – the more I understand myself and the way it – I love there's a Proverbs 28.1 where it says that the righteous are as bold as a lion but the wicked flee when no one pursues.
There's something about when I do the hard thing I'm asking you to do, I have more courage that it's worth asking you to do.
Like if I really believe that Jesus is who he says he is, then it's worth – I can point out the evil in the world and believe that's the best thing possible.
But it's hard to have that courage and be humble.
Yeah, that's so helpful.
And it also just keeps us from the passivity that I can feel drawn to because the world's solution to evil and injustice has been shown to be untenable, right?
Right.
Because it doesn't have a gospel lens on it.
So all that it does is categorizes people.
It's good guys and bad guys.
Some are fully sanctified regardless of what, given an identity or an ethnicity or a socioeconomic status.
And others are just terribly wicked.
Yeah, that's right.
And that just leaves people hamstrung.
You can't actually fix the thing you're trying to fix.
And so being able to look inward humbly then emboldens you to actually face the evil that's obviously out there as well.
That's right.
Because I think – I mean, me personally, as an immigrant in the States and the conversation around justice and – well, I've become pretty timid in the last little while to just go like, okay, well, I've got enough evil in here.
So I'll just deal with that.
I'm good.
Every time I try to deal with it out there, I get labeled as something.
Yes.
Right?
And that conversation has become so fraught.
But we mustn't lose our prophetic edge and think like, oh, just because there's evil in here doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't confront the evil out there in the world.
That's exactly right.
Where Satan's having a field day, we must.
I mean, the people who've got to call to be a people of justice who confront systems of injustice wherever they see them and find them and dismantle them.
With that self-awareness of we are so broken.
We must do both.
Well, and naming it in systems and then even in a Christian sort of fellowship, being able to – when people are suffering under the evil someone else did to them, be able to name that evil and call it what it is.
Not feel like for – I'm worried about if I name that evil, then you're going to feel like you have nothing to learn and there's no God in that.
Like I think we – again, we try to get into the outcomes only God can do instead of getting in that humble posture of my only job is to speak the truth and love to people and believe that even the worst scenarios can be made for good.
And again, that's the only evil in my life.
I mean, I think about the number – I do this all the time for my own soul when I'm struggling to love somebody and they've betrayed me or they have let me down or they have done evil to me.
I mean, I really think something about praying for your enemies.
Yes.
That helps you because it helps me go – and honestly, in my prayers to associate how have I seen the thing in them that I despise?
That's in me.
That's right.
And how have – maybe it hasn't gotten to that same degree, but how have I been power hungry and done things – not because I did the right thing, but I had all kinds of schemes in my heart.
And then the ways – and look back and go, and God was gracious with me.
God knew that before I did.
And he still blessed it or he didn't bless it or he was doing all kinds of things.
And there is a way for the gospel to train me to go, hey, Jesus is working a thousand things that you don't know about, that you don't deserve.
Right.
And if you want life to be about what you deserve, you're not going to like the outcome.
That's right.
It's not going to go well.
Because the gospel tells me I get things that I don't deserve constantly without even thinking about it.
But again, I think then it takes – it requires a level of courage to keep engaging with people even when it feels like evil – not keeps winning, but it just – you think – it's like whack-a-mole.
You think you get it one place.
You're like, what's over there again?
But I think that's where you grow weary if I expect evil to be eradicated here and now.
That is, again, back to the how long the Lord is.
As long as we're here, as before Jesus comes back, he's the only one who can do anything in a decisive way.
We can point out and hope that he does certain things.
Right.
But in the same way for me, it's like for some reasons, sometimes my heart is soft for the gospel and sometimes it's not.
Yeah.
Sometimes I'm like, I believe in the resurrection power of Jesus more than anything.
Sometimes I'm like, I sort of believe and I hope that's enough for today.
You know?
But I think there's something about that over time where you go, but the same is true in situations outside of me, for people that I love, for the church that I love, for the city that I love.
It's like there's too many things.
But I think to Ross, your point is we can't let the enormity of the problem cause me to not be faithful to my little post and my little local expression of it.
Right.
You know, like I can't fix every global problem that I see, but for me, the way that I process it, but I can pray for it.
Like a real practical way that I like try to get this in my soul is when I read a headline that folds me up.
Yeah.
I read another church leader fell, another awful thing happened.
I would like obsess over it and freak out about it.
And never pray.
And never pray.
Yeah.
So I'm like, God, I don't know how to fix the problem in Yemen.
Yeah.
What could I do?
Right.
How do I help Ukraine and the Russia?
I mean, I don't know how to solve any of these things, but I know that I'm like, but it's not my job to solve those things, nor is it my job to be callous.
My job is just to pray it.
Right.
And then, and honestly, it helps me to realize I'm not the answer to every problem.
Right.
It's like, I'm just a prayer person at this point.
Yeah.
I'm supporting some Christian over in a different part of the world in some church through my prayers.
Yeah.
Because I'm just one of many, one of billions of this church.
And I'm trying to figure out how to steward that in this day and age, right?
Because we're exposed to more amazing stuff in the world than ever before.
We're also exposed to more evil, right?
Because we have supercomputers in our pockets, which means that at a moment's notice, all of the world's evils are brought to our attention.
That makes us a uniquely pressured generation.
And I don't mean that in a woe is us kind of way.
Yeah, right.
Obviously, people have lived through much harder things and are currently living through much harder things.
But I am asking the Lord, like, how do you steward that?
Because I can't keep it away from me.
Yeah.
I can't live in a bubble.
I can't pretend I didn't see it.
How do we steward it?
That's right.
And how do we go in prayer and be useful and not have a savior mentality, but also not grow hard-hearted, which I can see happening so much in and around me.
That's right.
Well, I think you mentioning prayer, I think, is a really important piece.
I wonder, too, how you guys would articulate the power and impact of forgiveness, particularly when I think about the saints who, when we understand the evil within, how God has responded to our own evil.
Yeah.
And then when we, in turn, are wronged by others, right?
You mentioned, like, continuing to show up, continuing through prayer to see some of those same seeds are within myself.
How do you see forgiveness intersect confronting evil, especially in the local church where we're with brothers and sisters who, though redeemed by grace, are still capable, like ourselves, of great evil towards one another.
So how do you see the intersection of forgiveness playing into the conversation?
I mean, forgiveness is one of the ways that we display faith in God's justice.
Yeah.
This is us showing in the here and now, I actually believe that God sees, and I actually believe that God has made a way, and I actually believe that God will judge.
Yeah.
And the scriptures tell us that in the act of that forgiveness, right, that's actually enacting of God's justice on the situation in a way, right?
That's right.
Because we're declaring by faith, I believe these realities to be true in the here and now.
Bitterness is our way of holding on to our own lever of justice.
Right.
We think if I can be bitter against someone, I can punish them through that, which means I don't actually think that God will do it.
And so I say that, Phil, but I say that all in the context of understanding.
While we do suffer, we sit in a tremendously privileged position today, right?
And I wonder how Bonhoeffer would answer it or someone who's been taken across the seas as a slave and people who have had to serve in unjust wars and been treated so inhumanely across history.
I think the answer is the same.
I think it just takes so much more for me to say it.
But even that's helpful because it helps me categorize the level of forgiveness I have to grant.
Yes.
It's so much smaller.
Yeah.
It's so essential to what it means to be in the kingdom of God that Jesus is like, hey, part of your daily how to pray is learning how to forgive other people.
Yeah.
Like in the Lord's Prayer, he's like, no, no, it is so at a micro and macro level, just consistent that you're going to if you're going to pray in a way that I teach you, you're going to ask for forgiveness and give forgiveness to people as like a daily sort of routine.
It's his assumption that we'd be sinning against each other.
Well, because again, it's like we all have that Peter feeling of, again, in a vacuum, you're like, of course, we should forgive people.
And then you're wronged in significant ways.
You turn to Peter like, OK, but how about how many times?
Like three times.
Even if you think about if someone wronged you severely.
Oh, yeah.
Like betrayed you and then gossip about you and then like stole money from you.
You're like, that's three.
You know, sorry.
And then what happened?
I'm talking to Ross's friendship.
I have said sorry so many times.
I said sorry.
I'm sorry.
I just keep giving my bank account for some reason.
But like it's funny to look at him and go, he's like seven times.
You're like, seven times actually is a lot just if you think about it.
Yeah.
And I think we are so quick to train ourselves to harbor that, to have niceties and or to Ross's point or to tone down what they've done so that I can forgive it.
Right.
It is much harder to tell the truth about evil and forgive it.
And forgive.
I can do one of the other, tell the truth about it, harbor it or not really tell the truth about it and just forgive it and gloss over it.
And I do think it's where it's important.
Again, depending on what we're talking about, there's layers of like how long it gets to come to a place of forgiveness.
There's aspirational prayers.
We're like, I want to get to forgiveness.
I'm not there.
There's making sure you differentiate between forgiveness and trusting people in the same way you did before.
That is one big thing for me because I would flatten it and think forgiveness means I have to trust and trust myself to this person in the same way that I did before.
Right.
And I've been learning a ton about what does it mean to be innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents when Jesus talks about what it means to be on mission in this world of like having to navigate.
No, I can forgive and move on and genuinely want good for somebody and also be like, I'm not trusting you in that same way ever again.
But I think that's where people's they everyone gets worried that you're what you mean by forgiveness is saying this was no big deal.
Yeah.
And that's where the cross is going.
No, there's nothing about crucifixion of Jesus that says God is saying, oh, evil is no big deal.
Right.
He's actually saying it's such a big deal that only the death of my perfect beloved son could actually do it.
Right.
That's how awful it is.
Right.
But again, I think it's that constant tension of saying what's hard and believing what's good.
Mm-hmm.
They're really hard to coexist.
Yeah.
And I think that's why it takes the Holy Spirit of God to fill you to do that with any bit of sincerity.
Right.
I remember someone talking about that, you know, that sense of like they're getting away with it.
It's so hard to forgive.
Right.
And kind of back to what you're saying, like accepting the payment.
If you saw what Jesus had to pay to cover that sin, you wouldn't feel like they were getting away from it.
And if they're not under Jesus, there's coming a day when God's going to come back and repay evil himself where Jesus is going to destroy it.
And there was a sense, we talked about this in a conversation of ASDP at the little table I was at, of just saying if you saw with unredeemed eyes someone having to pay for their sin against you, you would probably cry out for mercy for them.
Right.
But it's with redeemed eyes you say amen because you understand this is what evil should be vanquished.
And I think it's worth saying when it comes to forgiveness of somebody and justice for somebody that, you know, you can forgive somebody and justice still fall on them for things that they've done here.
Right.
Yeah.
But I also think it is in an age that is in some ways rightly and some ways wrongly obsessed with this notion of fairness, justice, like make sure that we do what's right.
I do think it's worth saying the best justice here, though, is still incomplete because it can't restore what's been taken.
That's right.
It can't.
The best justice can't bring back those seven years you lost to that person.
It can't bring back what they took.
It can't bring back your home or whatever it cost.
And I do think that's the hope of the coming judgment is that actually Jesus is going to restore what was taken.
Yeah.
It's not just a punishment for the wrong being done, but it's a punishment for the wrongs and a restoration of what was lost.
And that is the uniqueness of the resurrection is Jesus raised from the dead with a new body, not a, oh, the old body.
God kind of salvaged the parts.
And that's what justice is here is in light of this awful evil thing, we have to figure out a way to salvage it, to say that it was wrong.
Right.
Whereas in the resurrection, you're like, no, he's going to bring everything back brand new and better.
And I think that is a, again, I think Jesus is the linchpin that makes you go, where else are you going to go?
Like there's nobody like him.
Who's going to deal with this?
That's right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's why sometimes our own theology doesn't make sense.
And the church traditions in the world that are sometimes, you know, actually ahead of us in terms of their pursuit of justice are also the ones that don't want to speak about the judgment of God.
And then there's those who want to speak about the judgment of God, but they don't want to pursue justice.
Those things go together.
That's right.
And our only hope for ultimate justice and the only fuel that we should have in our fight for justice is that God is going to judge the living and the dead.
He's going.
And that no one's going to get away.
Vengeance.
That's right.
And that the Jesus Christ, the lamb who was slain, he's coming back with a sword and not as a lamb this time.
That's right.
On a big horse.
And I know that image is scary.
But that image is also hugely comforting because it says that he's going to slay the nations, which is, you know, the biblical imagery way of saying like he's seen everything.
That's right.
And he's going to make it right.
That's right.
And he's going to make it right.
And frankly, I can't wait.
That's right.
Well, you won't.
You won't wonder, does God really care when that happens?
Yeah.
Well, it's both.
And it was funny.
The imagery of Revelation of coming back on a horse with a sword and then later in Revelation 21 of also wiping away tears.
Yeah.
And the tenderness of that.
Yeah.
Right.
I mean, do you think about wiping away tears?
The thumb on the face to wipe it away.
So personal.
So it's both and.
It's that like I'm going to see because the important thing about God's judgment is what it's going to say is that evil really was evil.
Yeah.
And it's not going to last forever.
That's right.
It doesn't make you go because that's why injustice here is so important because it does communicate.
Was that wrong?
Was it evil for them to do that?
And it's easy for us to say peace, peace, where there is no peace.
It's easy to say, no, no, it's fine.
And just overlook it.
And because that's a way of coping because that's easier to do than actually staring at what was wrong.
Right.
And that's what the final judgment is going to put right and say it was as bad as you thought.
Or some certain things are going to be like you thought that was good and it wasn't.
It wasn't.
It is a great sort of level setting of because for the new heavens and new earth back to the fullness of creation, the only way for creation to be set back right again is for no presence of sin to be there.
That's right.
And that's where, again, I think it creates this compelling worldview of, oh, there's a – the reason we would say the truth is because it's – I'm going to be – Jesus is going to prove that his word was right on everything.
And that way I can know that even if I labor for justice in a relationship that never happens and I labor for forgiveness and it doesn't seem to work or I try to do all these things that are right but evil seems to keep winning.
I can bank on it.
I can bank on it, but it wasn't in vain because in the new heavens and worth it's going to be seen as, oh, that counted.
That's right.
So I don't have to look – even the immediate results here to know if I'm being successful or not.
God, praise God for his answers and promises and revelation in the midst of difficult realities like pain and suffering and evil.
I'm excited to keep going through this series with our church and continue pressing into it.
But I do want to transition to our next and recurring segment, our now third version of this, which is called In Good Faith.
That's right.
Where we talk about the ways that we are practically fighting for everyday faithfulness to Jesus, the ways we're watering the seeds of faith in ourselves so that they can be mature, we can keep our eyes fixed on Christ.
And so, Tyler, I'm going to kick it to you on what does it look like for you to pursue faith in your everyday life?
I have four steps that I do.
But I think maybe the headline is that I think it's important for everyone just to know evil that is not metabolized by you will be metastasized by you.
If you don't know how to – and I mean evil done by you, evil done to you, evil done around you.
You're not made to stare at it.
Jesus never sees evil in the gospels.
It's like, oh, it's just normal.
Don't worry about it.
I came to destroy the works of the devil.
He is here to show what's wrong.
And if I just put it aside and shove it away and don't think about it, it doesn't say dormant.
It's going to metastasize in me and produce sort of coping mechanisms and all kinds of things.
And so I've just – and this is part of the last couple of years too of having to stare at really dark things and go, how do I make sense of this?
And if I don't metabolize it with the truths of the gospel and God's promises and obedience and his people, it is going to – what I've just seen is it is going to affect me in maybe indirect ways long term that take time to play out.
Because evil is not always a one-to-one thing.
I saw an evil thing and it produced an evil outcome.
It could be – it could make me harden myself off to relationships that I really need that ends up corrupting them a year from now.
There's a lot more complexity and deceit in that and slowness to it than maybe we're aware of.
So here – the ways that I've thought about it is when it comes to evil is I need to name the evil, the thing that I've seen, the thing that I've done, the thing that's happened to me.
I have to name that and that is – I think it's important because it helps it go from broad, big categories to specific things.
So I want to name the evil.
I want to pray my pains.
So I want to pray how that evil has affected me, both done – again, whether it's done by me, to me, around me.
Third is I – this is going to feel a little bit counter, but I want to own my agency.
So what I mean by that is I think every human story, depending on where you pick up the story, you're either a victim or a villain or probably both all the time.
But there are times where you're solely a victim.
So my agency is not that when I was seven I should have known better.
Right.
The agency is now that I'm 39.
What am I going to do with that?
That is the agency that I have.
That's right.
And I have to own that agency because I do think a way to deceive us from going to Jesus is repenting and believing the gospel means I have some agency for something.
Not that everything done to me is my fault, but what I do in the wake of what's been done to me does speak to some of what's going on inside of me.
So I think there's – I need to own my agency to go, I'm made – I'm an image bearer of God.
I'm made to make choices.
I'm made to choose life.
I'm made to go after Jesus.
And again, the Holy Spirit empowers all of that.
It's God's sovereignty over all of that.
But it does – that's important.
I think it's been an important part for me because evil makes you feel stuck.
Yeah.
And it just – it's like quicksand.
Yeah.
So I need to figure out what can I be in charge of.
So for instance, it's like when I've been betrayed before, it's like I can't go back and fix that, but I can learn like what are ways that I was an easier target for this person to betray over the way that I view people.
What are the idols in my heart that made me more susceptible?
I need to name those things and then own my agency in them.
And then lastly, I need to build what's good.
That's good.
I need to go from owning my agency to what can I own?
What can I – even if it's 1%, even if it's 0.1%, what can I own?
And then build what's good is I need a vision for what I'm pursuing, not just a reaction to what's evil.
Yeah.
I think we get stuck again when it's like I'm trying to solve the evil in the world.
I'm like I can't do that.
What's the good God's called me to do?
Yeah.
So you know what?
I want a different kind of relationship with my spouse, different kind of relationship with my friends, with my church.
Great.
Go pursue that good.
Don't just let evil win and basically overcorrect to solve the evil without missing the good God has for me.
So those have been the kind of ways that I do it.
And I think being in our church the last 15 years and leading through a lot of different things, for whatever reason, there are a lot of situations where God has put me at the ground floor of some dark things.
And these have been just the ways that I've tried to metabolize it and not metastasize.
And it's something that corrupts me in a way.
And a lot of it's with failure.
I'm seeing it metastasize my soul.
I'm seeing the hardness.
I'm seeing the fear.
I'm seeing the anxiety.
I'm seeing all the – Right.
And so those have been the ways that I've navigated.
I love that.
In some ways, it's flipping that narrative of like hurt people, hurt people.
Yeah.
But there's that sense of I love what you're doing.
We're flipping that scripture where what's happened to you doesn't define the future for you, that there is a greater story and a more defining narrative through Christ.
But it does require, I think, doing those things and those steps that you're on.
Yeah, absolutely.
I love that.
Well, thank you for sharing that, Tyler.
That is going to wrap up this episode of Questioning God.
If you want to jump in with our church to continue the study of Habakkuk, you can do that with any one of our six congregations that meet across the Austin area.
And be sure to like and subscribe this podcast so that we can get this story out to others and share this great news that we have.
And check out our next episode, which in the way we've been following Habakkuk and his questions throughout this podcast, we're actually going to shift gears and take questions from present day saints just like you who are wrestling for faith amidst doubt in God.
So you'll get to hear from those.
We hope you'll join us next time.