God Gives You Time

The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.

2 Peter 3:9

MANY TIMES PEOPLE ask why the world is the way it is. Why is there so much evil? Why do so many things go wrong? They claim that if God is all-powerful, he must not be loving, because he hasn’t removed evil from the world. Or, if he is perfectly loving, he can’t be all-powerful, too, or he would have cleaned up this mess.

Both propositions are wrong, though. God is both perfectly loving and all-powerful. The Bible offers several reasons why he has not fixed the earth and all of us permanently. One of the answers is found in today’s verse: he is giving everyone a chance to repent and express faith in Christ, and thus find salvation.

What would happen if God did clean up this mess on earth? Everyone who hasn’t trusted him would be banished to hell. Anyone who didn’t believe in Christ would not survive. But the truth is, God is patient, waiting for the right moment when everyone has had an opportunity to believe. His promise is that he loves us too much to exclude anyone.