God’s will for our souls

But there is something more important than our bodily health or comfort, and that is our souls, the real you and the real I.  This life lasts but a few years, the next life lasts for ever.  If our souls are safe with God, we shall be happy with him for all eternity.  But if, through sin, we lose God, then, however healthy or well off we may be here, we shall be lonely and miserable for ever.  That is why, above everything else, God wishes to make our souls safe for him, and God knows much better than we do how to do that (1 Thessalonians 4:3a; 1 Timothy 2:4).  We may not agree with the way he chooses, but God always knows best.  There are many examples of this in the Bible.  Let’s take two from the New Testament.

The Crucifixion

During the last few months of Our Lord’s earthly life, he began to warn his disciples how that “he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised”.  To Peter this seemed the worst possible thing that could happen.  “God forbid it, Lord!” he said, “This must never happen to you”.  But Jesus turned to him and said, “Get behind me, Satan!  You are a stumbling-block (obstacle) to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (i.e. looking at this from a human point of view, not from God’s) (NRSV, Matthew 16:21-23).

Jesus knew that if he laid down his life and allowed his enemies to crucify him, then millions and millions of souls, seeing his love for them, would be drawn to him as by a magnet and would be saved (John 12:32).  And this, he knew, was what his Heavenly Father wished for our sakes.  So in the Garden of Gethsemane, though he dreaded the thought of the Crucifixion and prayed, saying, “Father…remove this cup (of suffering) from me;” he added, “yet, not what I want, but what you want” (NRSV, Mark 14:36).

So now, the thing that makes us love Jesus and be sorry for our sins is the knowledge that he died on the Cross to save us from them.  Thus out of that terrible Crucifixion good still comes, and souls are still being saved and brought to God.

Persecution

The other example of the way in which God brings good out of evil is provided for us by St Stephen, the first Christian to be killed for the Christian Faith.  He was stoned to death, and the other Christians looked on it as a tragedy.  As St Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles, “Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation (mourning) over him” (NRSV, 8:2).  Stephen’s murder was the start of a fierce persecution against the Church, and every attempt was made to hunt the Christians down.  But great good came from it because the Christians were obliged to scatter far and wide, and everywhere they went they preached the Gospel, so that more and more souls were brought to love Jesus.  Thus even when God allows people to do evil, he can always bring good from it.