The Filter Effect: The Goodness of God in the Midst of Human Suffering

Do you blame God for something that’s gone wrong in your life? Does the fact of such prevalent pain and suffering in the world make you question God’s goodness . . . or His existence? If so, you are not alone. People have wrestled with these questions for centuries. The Filter Effect offers an answer to our haunting questions about the relationship between God’s goodness and our suffering--but the answer isn’t a why; it’s a Whom. God is, in effect, a filter for our lives, giving His permission for every single thing that happens to us and holding back much that we may never know about. Before anything reaches us--happiness or heartbreak, triumph or tragedy--it goes first through the permissive will of God.

The Lord is all-sufficient. He is holy. He is good. He sees us. He hears us. He made us and knows us. He is for us. And no matter what He allows through the filter, He does it out of love because He is Love.