Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.
C.S. LEWIS, Mere Christianity
God is usually blamed for the evils that exist in the world because if He is God, He can remove any problem quite easily because He is big and powerful. But to rid the world of sin and its consequences would require something extremely dramatic—removing all sinners. And apart from being born again, how many of us would be left? C. S. Lewis once made a statement that has helped me quite a bit throughout the years—“once the author steps on the stage, the play is over.” He can fix it all in a moment. But when He does, time stops, eternity begins, and the final line has been drawn in the sand. His answer would be quite painful. His patience, which we see in full operation right now, is so that we can gather as many into the family as possible. His long-suffering is beyond all of our abilities to comprehend and comes at great personal cost. (more…)
