Do you ever get that feeling that God doesn’t care about you? Maybe you’re not even sure God exists. Even if you think God is real, much too often it’s easy to feel that your life is of no importance to God. In a worst case scenario it seems like God doesn’t care whether you live or die, or how you get to live out your life. It’s easy to think that God couldn’t possibly care about people if some of us are allowed to starve, be marginalized, be raped, or abused in the many thousands of ways that human beings seem to be able to mistreat each other. When you look at it that way it’s no wonder people often think God doesn’t care the slightest about us.
However, there’s another way of looking at it. Maybe God cares about us so much that he’s willing to give us the greatest gift of all, freedom of choice. If God made his existence indisputable we wouldn’t really have a choice but to acknowledge him—there’d be no free choice.
With freedom of choice comes the right to choose evil over good.
It’s a high price to pay. But ultimately the only one that reflects true freedom.
The fact that people are starving, being marginalized, raped, or abused is a reflection of our choices more than it is of a god who doesn’t care. If there’s evil in this world it’s the result of too many bad choices by human beings, and obviously not the choice of the person on the receiving end of evil.
So if God cares, why doesn’t he do anything about it?
I suggest he does. However, he chooses to limit his actions by our choices. God tries to inspire millions and billions of people everyday to choose good over evil, so that they can help those who are victims of evil and injustice. God inspires people every day to try to end poverty, war, violence, and social and economic justices.
The big problem isn’t that God doesn’t care. The big problem is that too many of us don’t care enough.
If the billions of us that God inspires daily to make better choices simply made more of the right choices the world would be a better place.
The next time you feel motivated to advocate for peace, for injustices, for poverty, for women’s rights, for ending human slavery, for the environment, for whatever evil God has whispered to you about in your soul, make the right choice—take action.
Does God care about you?
Absolutely. Yes.
