Welcome back to Ask Me Anything where Pastor J.D. Greer answers your questions.

We are actually in the middle of a bonus series as J.D. is answering some of life's biggest

questions. This series is called 12 truths and a lie.

So one of the most ancient questions for Christianity is if God really is in control, if he's really

loving and powerful like he says that he is, why is there still so much evil and suffering?

It just sometimes feels pointless.

I get into this question in the book because it is really one of the questions I get asked

a lot.

And you know what we do in this podcast is we want to share things that are parallel to it,

things that will actually broaden your understanding and take you deeper and make you more equipped

with it. So the sketch of the answer is there in the book. But I wanted to talk in this episode

about something that has really helped me kind of come to understanding when it comes to this

question. And that's the bigness of God. And I know that you're like,

what's that got to do with anything? Here's the deal. A lot of people stumble when they get to this

question because they basically like to think of God as a slightly bigger, slightly smarter

version of us. And so they can understand why what God is doing. It just doesn't make any sense. So they're like, well, it doesn't make sense. And so maybe you're not there.

Maybe you're not as good as I thought you were. We like the kind of God to think of God in a way that is small, who feels safe to us.

A God who doesn't embarrass us, confuse us, a God who doesn't contradict us or make us mad. But here's the thing.

This is simply not the God that we encounter in the Bible.

The God of the Bible is the opposite of small and manageable and understandable.

He's big.

He's not just big.

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