God Is. God Is What?
I start this Relational God series asking this question because what kind of God we think exists matters. Whatever way we think about the kind of God we believe in, if there are inconsistencies in our understanding, it’s hard to believe in let alone love a God like that, because we have no idea what we’re loving. Without a clear and consistent view of God, we’ll probably be confused about how to follow what Jesus called the greatest of commands: to love God and others as ourselves. So when thinking about a relational God, I present a God where love risks.
God Is Love.
In John 4:7-8 John says, “God is love.” Yet in the surrounding passages, he lays out a stark contrast between God’s fundamental love nature and our ability to act in love or hate. The Bible presents a long list of attributes to God. Love isn’t only one of many attributes added to God’s character but that love is essential to God’s identity and agency. God is the source and standard of all love.
According to John’s logic, anyone who truly knows God, will also love others and those who don’t love others, don’t know God. Since love is essential to God’s nature, our failure or refusual to love – hating or at least indifference toward others, demonstrates a lack of spiritual fellowship and an authentic knowledge of God, a God who risks.
So if God is love, there’s a big problem.
When Love Risks.
“If God is love, why is there evil?”
That’s one of the hardest questions people hang on to, simple to ask but impossible to answer fully.
At times I wonder if God could have chosen a different way. What if God had simply determined everything from the beginning—blueprinted and scripted the world so tightly that evil never had a chance to exist? From where we stand, looking back at history’s trials, traumas and tragedies, that almost feels like it would have been the more loving option. Imagine a world without war, betrayal, abuse, or tears.
But here’s the catch: in a determined world, we might have safety, but we’d never have love. Love that is scripted is not love—it’s performance. This sounds strange but imagine someone who is programmed to hug you. That would only be a mirrored experience, it wouldn’t give you the same joy as someone who chooses to hug you because they want to. To be authentic, love must be mutual, which means it must be free, and freedom always carries risk.
A deity that determines could have controlled us into goodness, but God wanted more than goodness. With love as the core of His nature, being love determined God to create from love. He wanted mutual love relationships. And that kind of relationship requires the possibility of both trust and betrayal, faithfulness and failure.
And this is why evil persists.
It’s not because God is indifferent, nor because God is powerless. It’s because God refuses to cancel freedom. The cost of freedom is real—evil, suffering, grief. But the gift of freedom is also real—authentic love, joy, forgiveness, and hope.
And here’s where the story turns. God doesn’t stand back as a cold observer of the mess. God enters it and takes risks. In Jesus, God suffers with us, bears evil’s weight, and on the cross takes into Himself the very wound creation has opened. In the resurrection, God declares evil’s final defeat. Evil still has its tragic moment, but it doesn’t get the last word.
Don’t Explain It, Re-Frame It.
So we live in the tension: evil persists, but its end is guaranteed. Freedom still runs its course, but one day God will close the door on evil forever. Until then, God entrusts us to be co-agents of His love—resisting evil, embodying hope, and walking with one another in the mess.
This isn’t an answer that explains evil away. It’s a story that reframes it. We see evil truthfully. We see God faithfully. And we hold onto hope that love, not evil, will be the last word.