Why is there poverty, disease and hunger?

[Marathoner]

On 1/24/2021 at 11:34 AM, FatherGoose said:

Why did God create disease.? I will also ask now why he does not answer prayers to create more food to end hunger? Shouldn't this be easy for God? 

 

Why?

Man struggles in vain to comprehend the Lord Most High, seeking to conform His ways and thoughts in a manner which suits his own understanding. Yet the Lord Himself tells us, 

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it produce and sprout,
And providing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
So will My word be which goes out of My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the purpose for which I sent it."
(Isaiah 55:8-11 NASB)

Some proclaim that the Lord has nothing to do with what we perceive as evil or disaster; the words of God rebuke any who claim to know Him in such a way. 

I am the Lord, and there is no one else;
There is no God except Me.
I will arm you, though you have not known Me,
So that people may know from the rising to the setting of the sun
That there is no one besides Me.
I am the Lord, and there is no one else,
The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating disaster;
I am the Lord who does all these things.
(Isaiah 45:5-7 NASB)

Indeed, the book of Job describes how Satan came into the presence of the Lord and His assembly of holy ones (sons of God). The accuser petitioned God to remove His hand from His servant Job, asserting that Job fears God for nothing; did the Lord rebuke the evil one and cast him out? No... this is what the Lord did: "Then the Lord said to Satan, 'Behold, all that he has is in your power; only do not reach out and put your hand on him.' So Satan departed from the presence of the Lord." (Job 1:12)

All manner of evil and disaster befell Job, a man whom the Lord Himself declared as upright and blameless. Everyone believed that Job must have sinned to bring such ruin upon himself --- even his wife --- but this was not the truth. This is one of the many lessons the Lord provides to us in the example of Job: evil can befall anyone regardless of whether they are righteous or wicked. 

The Son of God is blameless, without sin and spotless in every way, and yet our Lord was afflicted so greatly that He wept tears of blood at Gethsemane before He was seized and crucified. Those around Him believed this to be the greatest of evils but we know that the Word made flesh, who was numbered among transgressors though He did no wrong, is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. This was our Father's plan all along. Christ laid down His life for the sake of His friends. 

We are called to suffer as the Lord suffered, @FatherGoose. Remember the example of Christ and the lesson of Job: God did not promise us a worry-free existence bereft of suffering and affliction. 

 

[JohnD]

This life is the most heaven

unbelievers will ever know.

At the same time, it is the

most hell believers will

know.

Why indeed is there

suffering and pain?