Why God Doesn't Remove Our Sinful Cravings Immediately
J.D. Greear
Every Christian I know has had the experience of coming up against the same sin—again—and wondering, “Will this struggle ever end? Why doesn’t God just remove this?” (If you haven’t had that experience, just give it time.) This seems to be a frustration common to all believers, and not just with sin, either. When we experience any prolonged suffering or pain or discomfort, we have to ask, Why?
This isn’t the question of a skeptic trying to prove that God doesn’t exist—the famous apologetic “problem of evil.” No, this is the personal question of a believer trying to discern what in the world God is doing with the continued struggles in his life. It is the question of someone who reads, “For those who love God, all things work together for good,” and trying to reconcile that theological truth with her present circumstances.
One of the most surprising insights into this question comes from Judges 3. Tucked in between the stories of Othniel and Ehud is a statement that most Christians skip right over. But if we took this truth to heart, we’d have a renewed courage to face our struggles: “Now these are the nations that the LORD left, to test Israel by them, that is, all in Israel who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. It was in order that the generations of the people of Israel might know war, to teach war to those who had not known it before.”(Judges 3:1-2)
Why did God leave struggles for his people, Israel? Israel’s struggle was tangible and obvious: it came in the form of enemy nations and their armies. So why didn’t God drive them out?