If God is Sovereign and Loving...Then Why?

...this is a question that I have asked myself. This is a question I have attempted to explain to my bedroom walls time and time again. This is also a question that I attempted to explain while giving an apologetics card yesterday evening. It's not an easy question, and the answer makes me quite uncomfortable.

If God is so good, why do I hurt? If God is so sovereign and loves us all so much, then why is there evil in the world? If God is so omniscient and omnipotent, then why do I suffer? If God is sovereign and desires perfection, then why did He allow us to fall, and still hold us accountable?

I was explaining the thought process to a friend that night, and I reached the end of my explication and said, "So, it's almost comforting... I don't have to have an answer. But then you look at it and you realize, 'Bummer! I don't have an answer!'"

The basic, underlying question behind this issue is... "If God is so powerful and loving, why does He give Himself the prerogative to allow "bad" things to happen to people?" (such as sin, suffering, and hell)

Romans 9:18-20 (The verses preceding this passage are facinating, by the way)
“So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?" On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, "Why did you make me like this," will it?

1. God has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.
2. The human response is, "Well, why?! If God is so loving, why does he allow suffering?"
3. God's response, "Who are you, O man, who answers back to God?"
4. Man's response, "Oh darn."

Tim Keller, a presbyterian pastor, says something that I found quite interesting...
"If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways.”

I would posit that an individual's faith is not where it ought to be when they look at God's actions and distrustfully ask "Why?". That individual has more faith in their judgement of God, than of God's knowledge, wisdom, and faithfulness. Faith is authentic when it looks at God with a sense of submission to His all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign, loving, gracious nature... and asks, "Why?" with a sense of wonder. This requires realizing that our finitude does not compare to God's infinite nature.

Does this answer make me uncomfortable? Yes. But not uncomfortable with God, necessarily. Rather, I'm uncomfortable with... myself. If I elevate God to His true position in the universe and in my understanding... I am left to stand in wonder and amazement... because rather than deeming God as the irrational one, ...I realize that I'm incapable of understanding.

Only when I realize how much I am not, can I truly realize how great God is.