“If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?”
Judges 6:13
Gideon asked the angel of the Lord this probing question, which is a question that most of us have asked as well, and the answer that we have received may have been less than satisfactory. We believe God should be the protector of his children; therefore, when bad things happen to us, we can only conclude that either God is incapable of performing his job, or he simply doesn’t care. If both are negative, the third possibility seems to be more plausible. Since God is all-powerful and all loving, he can certainly do both of the above if he is with us. The only other possibility is that he is not really with us to keep calamities from happening in our lives. But there is a problem in this viewpoint: God is omnipresent therefore he is always with us. As a matter of fact, he cannot not to be with us at all times and all places.
For the sake of argument, let us pose another question: what will happen to us if God is not with us?
Human life is not self-sustainable, so when the power that makes life possible vanishes, our lives too will evaporate into thin air. God is the one who creates and sustains life. It’s a great irony that we are able to question his existence, for it is because of him that we are endowed with the ability to question. We exist because he exists. If we were mere products of evolution, such a question would never be raised. It would be absurd to lay the blame on some sort of mechanical and impersonal process that has been taking place for millions of years. What has the first single cell in the primordial pond done to deserve blame for the imperfection of human life?
We would never question God if God were not with us. An atheist questions nothing about God.
Every question that we have ever raised is based on a set of presuppositions. Without them our questions become meaningless. People who pose a question about something being right or wrong must be assuming that there is an absolute standard of rightness upon which we all agree. Gideon asked such a question because he and most Israelites agreed that God was merciful and loving. His question would have been absurd if God’s people all believed that God was cruel and vindictive. We continue to be puzzled by the injustice of men because we continue to hold onto the unchangeable idea that God is just, and we question his love because he seems to have failed to deliver what he is supposed to deliver.
Gideon’s question for the angel of the Lord is nonetheless a good one to ask. His question was also an affirmation of God’s attributes of love and mercy. He did not cast doubt on God’s existence or his love for the Israelites by asking such a question; he merely had great difficulty comprehending the reason why God had seemingly temporally suspended his mercy and love toward his people. It’s a good thing that we are still asking questions. The ones who are no longer asking questions are resigned to the cruel reality that there are really no questions to be asked.
