What a crazy question most people would say. Of course, there is. We are wealthier, healthier and have more understanding about the world than ever before. But to the spiritual eye we live in a time of unremitting evil in which our governments are attacking freedom, our scientists no longer seek truth, our churches deny God and our artists hate beauty. The list could be extended. Nothing does what it is supposed to do and often actively works against what it is supposed to do. Could there be anything good about any of this?
The answer is yes. God can always bring good out of evil and what he may be doing now is allowing the world to become so insane and corrupted (which it will inevitably do when separated from God who is truth) that more and more people will wake up and turn to him in response to the evil. When it gets so dark that you can't see, you reach out for the light. God is essentially saying "You think you can do without me? Very well, try it and see." Of course, some people are so far gone in their rejection of divine reality that they will never come to their senses. This may be through pride or it may be that they have simply killed their own souls through neglect and denial. But for those who are redeemable, now is their chance. This, I suspect, is only the beginning. The situation will rapidly deteriorate. It is only recently that the results of atheism have really kicked in as the legacy of religion has supported us for a certain time after religion itself was rejected. But we have now lived in a materialistic society for 100 years, give or take, and have used up our spiritual capital. True religion is followed by only a very few.
But this is good because it means that if and when we return to religion we do so because we want to and therefore we take it seriously. It's not just what people do. It's what we actively want to do, need to do. Our religion will not just be a formal observation but a serious choice that determines our life and permeates all our thinking.
The present evils do not come from God. According to my understanding they are demonically driven and their main purpose is the corruption of souls which is a tragedy. But souls must choose God. That is the reason for us being in this world. We are given every opportunity but if we reject the opportunity that is our own choice. So God is not responsible for the evil in any way but he can use it as a means to wake us up as/if we react against it. The responsibility for this, though, is ours. We must learn to see evil as evil and that means recover a spiritual view of life which tells us that evil as not just doing bad things in a worldly sense. It is rejecting God and the idea of oneself as a spiritual being. In the final analysis, the spiritual view is the only one that makes any kind of sense but we have been deceived into thinking it is false because we have allowed ourselves to be manipulated by over a century of propaganda. But what the last year has made abundantly clear is that you cannot trust authority. It's all been bought and paid for. God is telling you that your only hope is in him. Accept this gift and you will be free.