God is also present by His power. When God called forth from nothingness this universe, He did so because the universe was to fulfill a definite plan in His mind. When God created me, He did so because there is a certain work He wants me to do, a certain contribution I must make to the completing of the whole. So He employs His divine power in creating, and then in ordering all the elements of His creation towards their respective appointed ends.
Nothing can impede or frustrate this divine plan _ not the wickedness and perversity of men, not wars or persecutions, not famine or sickness or death. There will be times, like the present, when to us it will seem as if everything is going all wrong. God's enemies are victorious; the members of the human race are oppressed with starvation and dire poverty; even as we write, there are wars and rumors of war. What sort of plan is this chaotic universe? How can so much evil be willed by an allholy and allpowerful God?
Suppose a great army is being moved across a valley for an attack. To any given individual it may seem that the orders are given at random; there does not seem to be any concerted action; one is inclined to ask, rather querulously, "What is the idea?" But suppose you go up in an airplane and command the full view of the entire army. At once you get perspective; immediately you recognize that there is order and system where before you could see only confusion.
In this world we are traveling across the valley, the valley of tears. Much seems to us to be all wrong, and, from the point of view of our material welfare, much is wrong. There is galling injustice, suffering and persecution of the innocent; there is hunger and poverty endured by those who try to live good lives; and, side by side with this, there is the opulence and excessive comfort of the worldly magnate. What is the idea? If God be present by His power in the midst of all this, how can we maintain that that power is not being thwarted?
We do not pretend to give the full answer. The problem of evil is not going to be solved till we reach our home in heaven. Only then shall we see how even evil contributed ultimately to God's glory and the salvation of souls. "All shall be well," said Our Lord to a chosen soul, "and all shall be well, and thou shalt see it thyself that all manner of things shall be well."
If, before a great calamity befell the world, God was to take us aside and show us exactly why He was permitting it, we should be like the man looking down on the valley from the airplane. We would see God's power and wisdom in permitting what had originally seemed to us a huge mistake. If, before sending us a long illness or before refusing us a petition for which we had prayed long and earnestly, God had explained to us how injurious to ourselves would be the object of our prayer and what immense benefits would accrue to us from the sickness, we would, of course, acquiesce at once.
But where would be our merit? It is just when I do not see or understand why, that I give to God an obedience and acceptance of His rulings that is a test and a valuable tribute to my recognition of His almighty power.
Jesus, teach me to imitate You in lovingly recognizing in every happening an indication of the divine power. Like You, I would keep always on my lips and in my heart that sentence You spoke: "Yea, Father, for so it hath seemed good in Thy sight."