O God, why do you cast us off for ever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your congregation, which you acquired long ago, which you redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion, where you came to dwell. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins; the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. Your foes have roared within your holy place; they set up their emblems there. At the upper entrance they hacked the wooden trellis with axes. And then, with hatchets and hammers, they smashed all its carved work. They set your sanctuary on fire; they desecrated the dwelling-place of your name, bringing it to the ground. They said to themselves, ‘We will utterly subdue them’; they burned all the meeting-places of God in the land. We do not see our emblems; there is no longer any prophet, and there is no one among us who knows how long. How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name for ever? Why do you hold back your hand; why do you keep your hand in your bosom? (Psalm 74: 1-11)

The persistence of evil, the oppression of the weak, the perversion of justice challenges the faith of many believers. Painful evidence is cited by many non-believers as cause for their non-belief.

Despite the testimony of many prophets I do not perceive that God uses pain as an instructional device or redemptive tool. Pain may, in fact, prompt learning and lead to redemption, but the pain originates with others, not with God.

Some claim an all-powerful God is missing in action. They say, surely when Pol-Pot, Hitler, and Stalin were playing as gods of death, our God must have been asleep; otherwise our God would have intervened. But I perceive we have received free choice as a divine gift. It is a gift we cannot return nor will God reclaim. But God is ready and able to inspire and guide our free choice and help us defeat the evil choices of ourselves and others.

Some assert that God has failed in keeping covenant. Many good people have turned to God as refuge and still have been raped, tortured, and suffered horrible death. I have never faced these sort of challenges, but I have found that the more difficult my life the more likely I am to open myself to God and I have always found God present and full of help.

Freedom is an enormous burden. I choose badly everyday. I know many well-meaning men and women who are everflowing streams of confusion and turmoil. I know a few who clearly delight in inflicting pain and suffering. Each of us, in our own way, have desecrated the dwelling place of God. The problem is not God's absense or passivity, but our choice to separate ourselves from God.