Denny answers:
God has given us freedom, and with that freedom is the ability to do bad things.
It is so hard to answer this question, and we all ask it. But we know that God is absolutely perfect and absolutely good. He only does good and right things, yet somehow He allows evil to exist in this world and to cause us pain. Some of the bad things that happen are because of our own sin, and still God allows us to sin and, by our sin, to cause these bad things. Job is one example of someone in the Bible who had many bad things happen to him. He didn’t understand why God was allowing these things to happen, yet he had the strength and faith to trust in the Lord. God’s ways and thoughts are higher and better than our ways (Isaiah 55:9), and He is the only one who understands them.
Sometimes we think we deserve to have good things happen to us, because we’ve been good, yet our attempts at goodness will never earn God’s favor or make us really deserve good things. Or we think we should have only happiness once we’ve trusted in Christ as our Savior, the forgiver of our sins. Yet even our faith and Christ’s forgiveness don’t take the bad things out of the world. In fact, Christ promised us that we should expect to experience suffering for His name and to have trouble in this world (1 Peter 4:12, Romans 8:17). Much of what we suffer as the “bad things” of this world happens to us specifically because we belong to Christ, and is because He suffered. Those who don’t belong to Christ must experience bad things because they, too, live in a sinful world.
One way to look at bad things is to realize that we truly don’t deserve to have anything good happen to us. We are all sinners who turn away from God by sinning everyday (Romans 3:23, 6:23). We can’t please Him on our own. We must trust in Christ, who died on the cross and rose to life again. He took our sins on Himself so that we could be forgiven, have new life with Him, and be in heaven with Him after we die (John 3:16, Romans 5:8, 10:9-10). Only when we personally accept His death for us can we be brought back into relationship with God through Christ’s sinlessness, which covers our sinfulness. We have an amazing gift through Jesus—a gift that makes up for all of the “bad things” we could ever imagine in this world! This is not to say that it is wrong to feel the pain in of living on this side of heaven, or that we shouldn’t sympathize with others’ pain. We need to show Christ’s love and compassion in this difficult world to let others know all of the “bad things” are only temporary. He wants us to come to know Christ and to live without any pain or sin, with Him, forever.
Bible Truth
- "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28).
- "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
- "for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose" (Philippians 2:13).
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