Series: Songs of Worship—Getting Real With God
Sermon: A Choice
Speaker and Writer: Elia King
Refresh: Open with prayer. Ask God for understanding through the Holy Spirit.
Read: Psalm 1 (NIV). As you read the New International Version, note 1–3 insights.
Reflect: “There is so much evil in this world! How could a ‘good’ God exist that allows so much bad to happen?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. After all, I wasn’t working as a literature evangelist or a missionary. I was just a barista in a cafe, so this comment from one of my colleagues caught me completely off guard. In the space of a second I went from sweeping the floor to standing, dumbfounded, as the world went about the rest of their day. I still wish I had known the answer. Maybe you’ve been there too. Or maybe you have been on the other side of the table. Maybe you have asked yourself (or someone else who is supposed to have the inside track on the whole “God thing”), why would God allow innocent people to suffer? Why would God punish children for circumstances in which they have had no say? Why are evil people rewarded with opportunities while good people are forced to watch their lives fall apart? Why do bad things happen to good people? And why do so many good things happen to such bad people?
Questions like these lie along the path for many people toward not believing in God. I think that’s because somehow we have bought into the idea that we can’t ask questions like these and still love God. And in fact, if we stopped reading at the end of Psalm 1, it would be tempting to think that this anthology had nothing to offer when it comes to these types of questions. But to stop reading at the end of the first chapter would be to miss the rest of the story.
By including Psalm 1 before the others, the author acknowledges one of the great struggles of this world: that how things are and how things ought to be are not always the same. But God, he would seem to say, is not afraid of our difficult questions. It is as if the Psalmist understood that by giving us these songs to sing, he was also giving us the vocabulary—even giving us permission—to ask these questions of God together, shaking our fists at the sky. But asking these questions doesn’t mean we have to walk away from God. When my three-year-old shoves his fists to his sides and shakes with anger, it doesn’t mean I am any less his daddy. He is simply saying, like the Psalmist, like Job, like many other characters from Scripture, this isn’t fair!
What we discover in Psalm 1 is an idea that you don’t even have to believe in the Bible to agree with: that good people should live happy lives and that evil people should not be rewarded. What we read in the rest of the collection is what it looks like to wrestle with the apparent realities of this world as we walk through them with God.
Recalibrate: What is one question that has caused you to question God’s existence?
Respond: Pray for something in your life that seems too “ordinary” to talk with God about. Ask for insight about that area of your life that you might be missing.
Research: Watch Andy Stanley’s fifth message as part of the series, “Who Needs God?” What thoughts or questions does this message raise about a God who cares about justice?