How could a good God allow me to be prideful?

You have to ask this question. That is, if you're someone who finds great difficulty believing that a good God allows evil.

If you wonder why there are third-world countries in that condition (if God exists), or if you're wondering why bad things happen to good people (if God exists), or if you have a problem with evil in general, you have to consider everything in balance. If we're talking about other people being hurt, oppressed, shamed, wronged, taken advantage of, and otherwise harmed being a problematic piece of the good God puzzle, then we have to be consistent--really addressing the issue will necessitate taking a look at all of the evil.

So, since you are asking the question it would make sense that you feel you are an arbiter of justice in some sense. You have a good idea of what justice involves and you have some kind of 'objective' understanding of what justice 'should be' and what 'good' and 'evil' are. So you must have an idea that there is objective morality of some kind that is true all over the world.

If you believe this, then you must also hold yourself to the same standard. Or, if you prefer a more utilitarian view of morality, then you will agree that what is best for the whole of society is consistency in our moral actions so that we can be on the same page and increase or maintain the overall health of the societal moral system. So you would agree that your part in that system needs to fit in a consistent manner.

If that's true, and you are aware of your part in the overall state of universal moral health (and are apparently a well-informed judge of what that should look like if you contend that the present state of the world is incompatible with the notion of a good God), then you should demand the kind of justice in yourself the alleged or real absence of which you bemoan in other agents.

See, your pride hurts other people. It leaves them out of the picture when you don't feel like their good suits your wants.

Your lust also hurts other people because it reduces them to functions of sexual satisfaction for you and relegates their unique qualities or personhood to a realm of irrelevancy, which leaves the door constantly open to your willingness to take advantage of them.

Selfishness effectively robs other people of what could be beneficial to them and to society on small and large scales, and the degree to which your circle of influence is affected by this is not within your control as the effects of your actions become--by virtue of the fact that they involve other free, moral agents--effects that others now have to deal with.

And since your selfishness robs other people of what could benefit them and society, you are effectively stealing from them what is, according to a morality that is ruled just by its relative benefit to society, rightfully theirs.

The list goes on for quite some time.

So you may not be en evil dictator that oppresses people, but you do oppress. You may not think you're a high and mighty king, but you are prideful. You may not actually trade sex slaves, but you look at others they same way; you buy or watch porn that supports those who trade; you encourage behavior that contributes to that picture; or you may even pressure someone into sexual 'favors' or activities, which kind of sounds like sex slave trade pressure. You may not steal people's wallets, but you rob their emotions or their time or their heart when you act selfishly or pridefully.

Since you are the arbiter of justice in the world, then you must be pretty wise. It would seem to me that wisdom dictates that the root problem isn't so much the things those 'other people' do that make the world the way it is. No, it seems like there are root problems of the heart and mind that we all share with 'those people'. True, we may not do those same things, but they didn't start off as dictators or slave traders. They started off, like the rest of us, with a heart problem and acted pridefully, lustfully, and selfishly for long enough and with the right conditions.

You may rail against the heart problem, but you apparently refuse to do anything about it. If you complain that you can't do anything about it, then why not turn to the God who can? Why not actually join the only real force that is doing anything about the evil in the world instead of contributing to it? Why not stop pointing at others for examples of what you want to be the case when the rest of the evidence contradicts you? Instead, point to the only one pushing back against the darkness. You're mad for a reason; these things are objectively evil indeed. But if you're going to point fingers, why not point first at your own heart and why not rail against the evil you yourself put out in the world? How many protestors picket their own sin?

Sell all you own to feed starving people. Quit your job to rescue sex slaves. Quit entertaining yourself to death and use that time to send or save money, go to those countries to build wells and hospitals, take time to teach inner-city kids how to read and write.

Don't do any of those things? Well, I guess it is fun to bat around philosophical ideas about justice and theology but you sound more like you're pretty invested in your anger at a god you don't believe exists. Sure, I don't do all of those things, but I'm also not the one complaining about what God isn't doing about other people's evil without first examining myself to see what evil I contribute to.

When it all comes down to it, and you're at your end, will you be able to point backward and know that you did all that you could to end the evil you saw, or will you point to a bunch of blogs, books, articles, and soapboxes about it that made you money that you didn't end up sending to those people? Or were you just using that argument to prove a point you wanted to be true all along? Highlighting various points in history where some people claimed Christian affiliation and committed horrendous evils is getting old in this discussion. History (real history, that is) easily and quickly points to past, present, and future efforts by the body of Christ to sell their possessions to feed others and build hospitals and rescue slaves, &c., &c., &c. And here's a little secret: it isn't about Christians. It's about Jesus Christ and if He wants to use someone who is not a Christian to free others or help others then He will. So He will gladly take credit for Christian as well as non-Christian goodness pushing back against darkness in the world. He is doing it all and you may be one of those people who isn't doing anything but arguing. Arguing doesn't put food on tables or dig wells. It lets. It just lets.

It isn't over if you're reading this. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are actively changing hearts in the world and you can be a part of that. But don't settle for a 'program' that wants to help other people, follow the one who can change your heart as well to push back against their evil as well as yours. Follow the one who agrees with you that this evil is ridiculous and needs to stop and has always done something about it and will soon end it. If you're confused about His timeline and are thinking it isn't soon enough, then forgetting yourself and your own selfish goals is a really quick you way for you to expedite the human process if God is moving too slowly for you. He is there for those who are hurting, which means you too, and He is there right now and His timeline is moving along just fine whether or not you side with Him and whether or not you think He's doing a good enough job.

You believe these things are evil because we bear the mark of the Creator who made us that way. The fact that we are not all completely evil as far as we can be shows that mark and current concern of Him. I don't think your reactions are against the flaw in the overall societal goodness structure. I don't think your reactions are separate from an objective understanding amongst all that justice is needed all over. And I don't think your reactions, grounded in that objectivity, came from nowhere.

Christ alone can change hearts to be concerned with the things of God as they are concerned with God Himself. Some people are indeed more 'good-natured' than others and that is sweet mercy on God's part. Make fun of missions and evangelism all you want: at least we are consistent in the evil we see in that we understand that the heart is what is broken and that Jesus can fix it. So we're going to point people to what can truly change their heart and help them push back against evil. We don't want 'club members'; we couldn't care less about how many if that number just reflects people who want to join a club. We care about numbers insofar as those numbers are people whose hearts have been changed and are now examining themselves to not dump more evil into the world, as well as grow into more selflessness to push back against the evil they don't directly commit, or maybe even do directly commit.

We aren't perfect in this at all. We fail a lot. But God never fails. Don't rail against Him for your contribution to the world's evil. Follow Him and ask Him to help you push back against your own evil as well as the evil you rightfully hate so much elsewhere.

For so many of us who follow after Jesus, we experience a time at the beginning of that journey filled with tremendous joy, zeal, gratitude, and devotion. We take huge steps and make huge leaps and find ourselves so eager that nothing could possibly bring us down.

Then we move.

Whatever this is or whatever it looks like takes so many shapes and comes at many different times for each person. It may be that we learn something about the faith that wasn't fully explained to us before so we are confused and not sure how to bring it all together. Or we go through a very difficult time such that our joy takes a big hit and we feel a little deserted. For some it may be a particular expression of sin that just won't go away and we begin to question the genuineness of our faith.

For those who are truly following Jesus and have been made new by the Spirit, coming across some aspect of the faith that wasn't fully explained at the beginning shouldn't do much damage. It may be confusing but it isn't likely to bring one's joy in Christ tumbling down. For those who undergo a difficult time early on, it isn't so much that our walk is suffering and we are missing out on what our walk once was; we are simply living in that kind of world and thankfully we have Jesus to comfort us through that time.

I would contend that the majority of us in that place of longing for the early days have drifted into sin of some kind. I don't necessarily mean some huge demonstrable sin-fest (though I have been the partaker of those on several occasions). It doesn't have to be an old sin we've fallen into again, or a new sin we bought into. It can be something so very small and simple as being lazy in our thinking. Or it can be taking our joy for granted and not nourishing it at all.

Yet all of this falls under the umbrella of creating God back into our own image, which is the thing we are fighting against for the rest of our lives. Living lives of repentance means battling our old self--the self that wants to make God into what we want, which runs the gamut from a god that gives me everything to a god that doesn't even exist.

In the next part, I'll look at Jeremiah 2.5-7 to gain some perspective on this issue and confess why my own longing for the 'early days' stems from my sinful refusal to follow and a demanding expectation to simply be led around.

My beautiful wife and I recently became the proud parents of a cute-as-heck Maltichon puppy. A Maltichon is a Maltese-Bichon Frise (said: 'free-zay') mix and he is a delightful little pup.

Having grown up with several animals, I expected all of the good things to still be true of owning a dog: playing a lot, funny moments, not-so-funny moments, expense (though when you're a kid with 'your' dog the folks typically pay for everything so owning a dog seems cheap to you).

What I didn't expect, but prayed for anyway, was for this little guy--named Calvin--to teach me more about God and about myself. I am grateful for the answers to that prayer, though what they reveal sometimes isn't pretty. I found myself pretty upset one day after having popped Calvin a little too hard for barking wildly at my father-in-law, whose house we were staying in over the weekend. His head went sideways and he hit his face on his travel crate. In reality it wasn't that hard, even for a little dog, and he was in the doorway of his crate so his head moved all of a couple of inches into the door. But I felt (and still feel) terrible about it. He's a four month-old puppy; how on earth is he really supposed to have figured out complex ideas like, 'You shouldn't bark at people, especially people who are letting you stay in their house'?

I think I picked up some bad habits from watching other dogs being raised. Not that anyone was ever downright cruel toward our animals, but there's no doubt that every now and then the response far outweighed the offense. We often underestimate animals for their basic intelligence and ability to figure things out for themselves; but we also often overestimate them and assume things like, 'No, he knows what he did. Look at him. He understands.' Does he? Does he really understand or has he become accustomed to your tone of voice dipping down when you are expressing anger?

So what does all of this have to do with Theology and the God we strive toward? It is yet another lesson of how impatient I can be and how harshly I can react when even a four month-old puppy doesn't understand and how I, knowing full-well the consequences of my sin but continuing to do it anyway, apparently haven't made the connection deeply enough: I am not a four month-old puppy who is confused but a sinner who even plans my sins out in advance, irrespective of the tremendous grace God pours out on me every second. Yet He continues to show me mercy.

And even when I want to sit in my sin and misery, moping about and feeling sorry for myself God gives freely and extends grace and mercy all the more. I think at least one reason for this is so that I learn to do the same. God doesn't slap my face into a door; He lets me continue trying to understand what I need to do as I "hunger and thirst for righteousness." I want to be satisfied. And Jesus promised I would be.