Question
I and my girlfriend are 17 years old. Last spring we found out she was pregnant. The next month she got an abortion, even though she knew I wanted the baby. I felt as my opinion had no meaning to her. I had thoughts that God didn’t want me to have a baby because of my past sins. I broke up with her a few months ago, but we got back together within a few days. Thoughts of our unborn child led us back to each other.
I’ve been having questions about why God allowed my girlfriend to get an abortion. Knowing it’s a sin that counts as murder, how will she be judged? We pray every night for forgiveness, and we also pray to heal our relationship because we are in a crisis of depression. Please help me find answers as to why God is treating us this way. I also ask for prayers to heal our relationship and mend us to be happy again and to enjoy each other’s company. I also ask if the person reading this prays for me and my girlfriend to heal all of our suffering and sadness and turn it all into happiness.
Thank you.
Answer
“You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?” (James 4:3-5).
The base problem is the assumption that there is nothing wrong with you having sex with your girlfriend. You not only treat fornication as if it is normal, but you seem to have taken pride in the fact that you sired a child out of wedlock. “Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge” (Hebrews 13:4). Then your girlfriend decided she didn’t want the child and had the child killed with an abortion. While you were against that, you ask why God didn’t stop her from having the abortion? It is the wrong question.
God doesn’t take away any person’s free choice. He doesn’t want you to sin, but He won’t stop you from doing foolish things either. It was your choice to pull off your clothes and have sex. God didn’t stop you then. When the natural consequence of sex produced a child, God wasn’t going to step in and prevent that either — that was the result of your choice to sin. For the same reason, when your girlfriend decided to kill her child, God did not stop her from committing this additional sin. The problem isn’t about why God didn’t stop you. The question is why have the two of you been ignoring God? “Behold, the LORD’S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear. For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue has muttered perversity” (Isaiah 59:1-3). Another question is why are you expecting blessings from God when you’ve been putting your own passions over His teachings?
In other words, the situation you are in is of your own making because you ignored God. The way out is to start paying attention to what God said. It is long past time to put your pants back on and leave your sins behind. It is time for a radical change in your life. “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter” (II Corinthians 7:10-11). While you probably consider yourselves Christians, I don’t know if you’ve actually learned and obeyed God’s teachings on how to become a Christian or not, so I would like you to read: What Must I Do to be Saved? Also, in regards to being forgiven, especially after you become a true Christian, see: Are You Unforgivable?
Question:
How do I know if God truly loves me? I got my girlfriend pregnant on purpose, knowing God didn’t want me to. I’m sorry. I don’t know if God will forgive me for this.
Answer:
The problem is never on God’s end. He wants people to change and leave their sins. “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). So the true problem is whether you give up your sin.
I don’t know if you thought about this, but if you purposely got your girlfriend pregnant, but she turned around and got an abortion when she found out she was pregnant, then that means you did this without her consent. As I mention, the sex was wrong because you two aren’t married. The abortion was wrong because it was taking the life of an innocent child. But even your motivation in this matter was wrong as well.
You can sit there and feel sorry for yourself and your past sins, but sorrow doesn’t change anything. Rather, get busy becoming a true Christian who respects the people he is with. Your girlfriend isn’t there for your pleasure. She is a possible lifetime companion, whom you should admire and treat better than yourself.