"Why does God let bad things happen?"

I've heard critics use that argument, asking why a loving, benevolent and forgiving Creator would let tragedies happen ... as if therefore, God must not exist.

If God exists and if God is supposed to love us, then why did He allow that tragedy to happen?

In other words if God doesn't answer their inquiries or fulfill their expectations, these critics will eagerly deny God's existence and then optimistically place their faith (and salvation) in whatever god they can bend and conform to conveniently suit their expectations.

That's why the world is filled with gods like intellectualism, rationalism, money, fame, material success, sex, drugs, religion ... or anything else that happens to suit.

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The next time the news headlines are splashed with the lurid details of another flood, another famine or any other tragedy, I wonder how many of the same critics who deny God's existence will step forward and argue

"Rationalism/money/sex/career success must not exist, because rational thought/money/sex/career success didn't prevent that bad thing from happening."

"My Sins don't matter"

So let's talk about you, your faults and your sins.

In other words since I was born without sin and since I helped Jesus climb up on the cross and since God never asked me to sacrifice what I love

... And since I helped Roman soldiers drive spikes through Jesus's hands and feet so Jesus could prove who He said He was

Let me tell you why I think you're a sinner:

Here's what's wrong with your life.

In your prayers, please remember Jean and Scott Adam

Jean and Scott Adam are the Bible-distributing missionaries captured by Somali pirates on February 18.

"The Adams were unhappy being "dirt dwellers" so they took to the sea on their yacht, distributing Bibles around the world, their website said. Photos show a smiling couple who delivered Bibles to remote villages "fromNew Zealand to Alaska to Central America -- and now from Panama, through French Polynesia, the Cooks, Samoa, Tonga and back to New Zealand."

"We seek fertile ground for the Word and homes for our Bibles," the website said. "Often, the ultimate homes are best found by people who are already living locally and seeking and cultivating that fertile ground. AND even more extraordinary are the times when people have been praying for Bibles for their group or their schools and when we arrive we are often greeted by the attitude of, 'We were expecting you.'" - source

Read the full story here.

Read more about SVQuest here.

Update

Four Americans Killed on Yacht Hijacked by Somali Pirates

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/22/americans-aboard-yacht-captured-pirates-reportedly-killed/#ixzz1EiwHTkJQ

Feel compelled

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

- 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Which way should we go?

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3:5-6