I'm being assaulted.

Not by violence, you see, but news of it. All the stories of bloodshed and disaster and evil are getting to me. It's really messing up my happy new year here in the suburbs.

For those of us whose lives don’t seem to reflect the expanse of human suffering in the world, how can we label our good luck as a divine blessing without simultaneously implying that God decided to screw everybody else? It is then that God starts to feel like a nickel slot machine. Solomon used different language when he proclaimed in the book of Ecclesiastes, “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve.”  Aw Shoot. Makes no sense to me either.

People living in perennial peace are often afraid to question God’s sovereignty. Maybe if we don’t say anything, God won’t check his records and notice we got two paychecks by mistake while someone else forgot to get paid at all. Or perhaps worst of all, the numbing softness of our lives prompts no philosophical questions whatsoever. When that happens, God becomes unnecessary. Suffering has no meaning. Violence is mere cinema.

Dictators dreaming of nuclear weapons, suffering children dying in rubble, desperate looters shooting the innocent at will—how can we not see the hand of evil at work in the world? Essayist Lance Morrow wisely observes that  “each era gets its suitable evils.” The play is the same; only the cast of characters changes from generation to generation.  

In Shakespeare’s Macbeth the playwright practically splatters the script with bloodshed. Halfway through his tenure as one of literature’s most twisted assassins, Macbeth compares his tour of violence to crossing a body of water. He stoically announces, “I am in blood stepped in so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o’er." At least the guy knew what lake he was wading in. Others aren’t so clearheaded, like Christopher Speight, the most recent Virginia shooter whose history of mental illness makes his form of evil all the more insane.

And yet, for all its drama, global suffering still feels like my grandfather’s 1950’s comic books: surreal, brightly colored, a mere reproduction of the real thing.  I cannot grasp such evil despite the relentless imagery, both real and imagined. My suburban life is tucked neatly beneath blue skies. The earthquakes of suffering are reserved for other settings such as voodoo-laced Port-au-Prince or a bombed street in Baghdad. 

The old poet John Milton explores the almost comic book clash between good and evil in his epic Paradise Lost whereGod and Satan battle it out in beautiful poetic contrast. The Old Testament records an interesting exchange when God, in the book of Job, asks of Satan, "What have you been up to?" Satan answers God with, "Going here and there, checking things out on earth." Ah, the great tormentor is always eager to stroll the neighborhood.

Yet my suburban American life is so far away from such cosmic wrangling, or so I imagine. My day-to-day trauma is shockingly tame. Perhaps a criminal’s bullet, southeast of town, rips through an apartment window. Occasionally a local loony flips out and shatters the peace. The dark specter of suicide swallows up a high school student with too many pills. Horrifying, indeed. But chronic, relentless human suffering? Not in my backyard.

But I come to realize that all of these points of view depend on one faulty assumption: as long as my body is safe, I have nothing to fear. Give me a safe neighborhood, an impenetrable military fortress, or an earthquake-proof structure and I’m good to go. When my health is secure, my flesh uncut, I am beyond the reach of terror. This becomes my measurement of good luck and blessing. Peaceful communities enjoy this kind of security because we perceive that our safety rests in our own hands—through our tax dollars, infrastructure, vaccinations, armies, and gated neighborhoods.

Can we not see we’ve calmed our heaviest fears with the flimsiest defense? In the tenth chapter of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says this about our enemies: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” So while we are have lined up our greatest intellectual resources to defend the body, evil slips around back and steals our souls.

I bear some guilt living in a quiet cul-de-sac while others in the world bear the brunt of evil’s rampage. Why did God give me such simple joys? Why are my children spared the terror of full scale disaster while other beautiful children must die? Anyone who has lived along the peaceful sidewalks of suburban America has experienced the quiet guilt of being given too much. Children might grab the best piece of cake without a second thought, but as we mature, too many rewards for too long can feel like a divine mistake.

 To victims of evil, we define God’s sovereignty as mysterious. Our answers come out sounding like “God’s ways are unknowable” or “He works all things out for his good.”  If mystery doesn’t satisfy us, we can cite the famous Old Testament principle that an old family tree rotted by sinful fathers will crash upon its innocent descendents. Those arguments don’t sound the same for the happy folks. Oh, I guess my ancestors must have behaved themselves—lucky me! 

But Satan’s attacks on the body are merely shadow puppets for his larger scheme: to devour the soul of man, to separate us from the glory of God. My efforts to protect my family must extend to the spirit, so that I may say with confidence “Death where is thy victory? Oh grave, where is thy sting?”  I grieve for my human brothers and sisters whose bodies are being destroyed today. Their pain is crushing; I pray for their safety.

Yet I would do well to remember that as I watch the winter rain falling peacefully outside my window, with my children safe and dry while dinner simmers on the stove, Satan still makes his rounds around my neighborhood tonight. I have no guarantees that my body will last the night. But my soul? That's where the assault ends.