Reflecting on Leo Tolstoy’s short story, ”God Sees the Truth, But Waits,” I suspect that there are many people, like me, who identify all too well with Ivan’s plight. What did he do to deserve the evil that befell him? What did I do to deserve the evil that befell me in my childhood? Where was God as Ivan suffered unjustly? Where was God when I suffered unjustly at the hands of my abusers?

Tolstoy’s answer to these questions is found in Ivan’s reflection on his wife’s suspicion of him.

“It seems that only God can know the truth, it is to him alone we must appeal, and from him alone expect mercy.”

No matter how you explain it, God’s relationship to evil is a great mystery and will remain so because God sees eternity through an open door but we see eternity only through a keyhole. In other words,  because we are finite we cannot be privy to all that God knows.

And even if we had a perfectly logical explanation as to why God allows evil to befall people it would still not lessen the pain and agony of people who are suffering.

The only thing we can do in the midst of suffering caused by evil is to appeal to the mercy of God and believe that God knows and is in our suffering with us. The suffering of God with his people in Jesus Christ on the cross is one of the great truths and great mysteries of Christianity.

The other great truth of Christianity that sustains people who suffer unjustly is that God will one day balance the scales and make all things right. There is coming a day when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. When that day will come no one knows. We must wait with faith for it.