Many believers and “former believers” have taken offense at God because they believed he allowed bad things to happen to them when he should have prevented them. Their view was that if God loved them, he would not have allowed a child to be molested, a divorce to happen, a woman to be raped, or a war to take lives.

I worked with man years ago, when I was young believer, who seemed to have no regard for God and a bit of disdain for the church. I tried to share my faith with him on numerous occasion, but he always changed the subject. One day he told me that he did not want to hear about Jesus anymore, but out of respect for our relationship, he decided to tell me why. He confided that he once had been married and very involved in church. He said he was a group leader, a deacon, and coached the kids softball team. One day, he came home from work early and found his wife in bed with his best friend. He said that if God would allow that to happen to him after he was faithfully serving him, then he didn’t want anything more to do with God. So he left the church, discarded his faith, and wanted no more conversations about it in the future. He felt that God had betrayed him by letting his wife and best friend make a bad decision. I think many others are mad a God for essentially the same reason.

The issue here is a misunderstanding of free will. Most of us would acknowledge that at some level we don’t want people telling us what to do or what to think and certainly don’t want to be controlled. That impulse is the desire to exercise free will. Theologically, free will means that I am able to make decisions without being controlled by God. God can influence me but cannot control me without violating my free will. The problem with free will is that I can make bad decisions and those decisions can hurt other people.

Billions of men and women wandering the planet with the capacity to make their own decisions is very risky business. Free will got Jesus crucified. It has begin countless wars. It has seen millions of babies aborted. We could go on. So why did God create man and give him free will? I can think of a couple of possibilities.

First of all, God made a free will choice to make us in his image. One of the primary qualities of being like God is the quality of free will. Without free will, we would be no more like God than a programmed robot would be like the engineer who made it. Of course, God’s original intent was for man to live on the earth and choose to love God as we want children to love parents.

In addition, the apostle John tells us that God is love. Love can certainly be given unconditionally, but eventually is not fully satisfied unless love is returned. It seems to me that love cannot be satisfying or fulfilling unless given freely. I am fulfilled by my wife’s love because she chooses to love me rather than being “forced” to love me. When someone loves another, that love assigns value to the one being loved. Ultimately, love that is programmed or given without choice is not truly love and assigns no value to the recipient. Women caught in highly controlled or highly abusive relationships may say the right things or do the right things that might be mistaken for love, but we would not define those emotional responses as love as much as we would define them as survival techniques.

What we must recognize is that God has given us all free will, whether we approve of that or not. That free will allows us to love, but also to injure. It allows ups to sacrifice but also be selfish. It allows us build up, but also to destroy. It allows us to choose faithfulness, but also unfaithfulness. God tries to persuade us to love, to do good, to give life, and to make positive choices, but he does not force our choice. He reinforces godly choices with blessings and discourages hurtful choices with discipline, but he allows us to choose.

My friend who found his wife in bed with his best friend, blamed God rather than his wife and friend. It never occurred to him that God may have put a number of road blocks and detours in the developing relationship between his wife and friend or that the Holy Spirit may have tried to bring conviction and warning to them as they moved toward adultery. But ultimately, God will allow us to exercise our free will. When we are hurt, either by our own decisions or the decisions of others, God will be there to help us pick up the pieces, heal, and move on. I must also point out that because God allows something, it doesn’t mean he approves of it or won’t deal with the perpetrator in his timing. Scripture declares that all those who choose to hurt others without repentance will stand before God and answer for that in the end. In the end, through our free will, each of us will choose life or death, eternity in heaven or in hell.

I must admit that this world is a dangerous place because of free will. Sometimes I wonder if we have too much freedom to choose, but without it, what kind of world would it be? Free will is a privilege bestowed by God that can bring glory to man made in God’s image or shame to man when he rejects the God who made him. But, let’s stop blaming God for what he has not done and hold man responsible for his decisions…knowing that the grace of God can put it all back together when e hold on to him inspite of the pain we might be experiencing.