It Could Be Much Worse For All God's Creatures

This amazing Psalm 104 shows a God who has planned everything so the creatures of this world can flourish:

The trees of the LORD are well watered,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
There the birds make their nests;
the stork has its home in the pine trees.
The high mountains belong to the wild goats;
the crags are a refuge for the coneys.
The moon marks off the seasons,
and the sun knows when to go down.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God. (Psalm 104:16-21)

Imagine a world in which the trees are too puny to bear the weight of birds, let alone storks, where there is no mountainous refuge for wild goats and coneys, where there is no night for the nocturnal beasts to prowl, where food is scarce and all of God's creatures know constant suffering.

Ever wonder how the animals of this world evolved at the same time that the earth itself came to provide the essentials those animals needed? It all works, this environment made by God. And what we see done for the lowliest of God's creatures reflects his heart, the design of a loving maker who wants only the best for all he has made. Compassion for the wild goats or the lions has to translate into compassion for us.

God Who Provides

If we're going to criticize God for all the failings we think we see in him, we're also going to have to reckon on the ways he shaped his creation to provide for our needs. In the Bible we find Psalm 104:14-15:

You cause grass to grow for the cattle.
You cause plants to grow for people to use.
You allow them to produce food from the earth--

wine to make them glad,
olive oil as lotion for their skin,
and bread to give them strength.

All we need. Sure, there are times when these systems break down, but for the most part we have this amazing cycle of germination, growth, harvest, rest, germination, and so on, which means that we survive.

When we struggle with God, who he is and why he is the way he is, we have to pay attention to the fact that he has built into our world the mechanisms to care for us, to feed us, to give us pleasure. In this testimony from nature itself is a signal that he hasn't left us.