No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it has run its course, brings forth death. (James 1:13-15)

Have you ever been frustrated with God and asked Him, “Why?” When things don’t make sense or God’s presence feels far away, we often wrestle with this question. As we become increasingly frustrated and impatient, these questions can escalate into outright anger toward God for not addressing the problems we face. Over time, we may start to point the finger at God as the cause of our struggle. The problems of the world are big and what we can do feels small, so we want someone to blame. Yet blaming God is not only something that is ill-advised, it has a faulty assumption at its core. It assumes that God is the reason for our struggle in this life when God has never been the source of evil and brokenness. Whether it is evil in the world around us, or evil we struggle with in our own hearts, evil does not come from God. He created the world perfectly and sin intruded.

We would rather blame others or even avoid the work God wants to do in our own heart, but this Scripture is clear—part of addressing evil in the world starts with opening ourselves up to how evil has taken root in our own lives. God’s strategy of redemption in your life is not to fix those people over there but start with changing you from the inside out to reflect Him in a broken world. As we surrender to God, the ultimate Healer and Redeemer, we walk with Him in a new way of life.

• When was a time you felt distant from God and blamed Him? How did you work through that struggle?
• What are some areas of evil in your own heart? How have you tried to fix those things on your own? How have you gone to God in that struggle?
• Pray and ask God to open your eyes to the areas of evil in your heart. Ask Him to continue to change and mold you to look like Him.