A thought on the question: Why does God let bad things happen?

Cb - posted on 12/15/2012

Haha....you spelled it um-bridge!

Cb - posted on 12/15/2012

Haha....you spelled it um-bridge!

Cb - posted on 12/15/2012

Haha....you spelled it um-bridge!

Cb - posted on 12/15/2012

Haha....you spelled it um-bridge!

Alexandra - posted on 02/15/2011

I struggled with that question for many years when I was younger, until I met the woman (now my best sister-friend) that explained it to me in a way I will never forget.

She said:

There are five forces at work in this world:

God-It is never His will for us to be hurting or sick (Jesus never said NO when someone asked for healing.) It is not His will for us to have troubles in our lives, calamity or pain, that is why He created the Garden of Eden. Satan was given dominion over the Earth when he got kicked out of heaven. When God created man, He took dominion and gave it to man. That is why Satan tricked Adam and Eve. By causing them to fall, he was able to STEAL dominion back. God sent Jesus to die on the cross to TAKE BACK DOMINION and give it back to man, through HIM. It is the people who deny Jesus that have the most problems in life, because they do not have the knowledge and protection of their rights and destiny. That is why God gave us the Bible to live by. He has been around since the beginning of time, and has watched millions of people over the years do wise and foolish things. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and if He warns us not to do something, there is a good reason for it. Not to take away our fun, but to protect us. Bad things still happen from time to time, because we are not perfect. Why blame God when bad things happen? He is the only person you can count on to heal the hurts and help us get through the hardest most difficult challenges of our lives. HE IS GOOD, and HE IS LOVE.
Satan- His biggest trick is to either get you to think he doesn't exist so that you blame God for everything, or create situations in which you doubt your destiny and God's love for you, which allows resentment and anger into your heart. He loves to create chaos and problems in people's lives, simply because he can if we allow him entrance. His war is with God, and as God's precious children...he attacks us to hurt God. However, not everything bad in life can be blamed on Satan.
Ourselves- We each have free will and a book full of wisdom to choose to read and APPLY to our lives---or not. It is not God's will for bad things to happen to us, but if we choose to ignore His wisdom and go our own way, there are consequences to turning your back on God.
Other People- It is not God's fault if a drunk driver hits a child on a sidewalk. It is not the parents fault or the child's. Sometimes other people make very bad choices that affect the lives of other people. It's not fair, or right, but it does happen because God gave each of us free will, to accept or deny Him and His ways.
Natural Laws- Blaming God for your house falling down in an earthquake or getting washed away in a hurricane is foolish. God did not cause the storm, natural physical and scientifically predicted disasters happen every year. God gave us science to explain events of the world, but He does not deliberately set out to destroy people's homes, and you have the free will to choose where in the country you want to live.

In every instance of something bad happening to someone good, you can clearly find one of these five forces that govern the Earth and the people on it.

Josslyn - posted on 01/05/2011

Remember that God sis not keep his own son from persecution, so why then should he keep you from it?.....(cant remember which movie it comes from.)

Julie - posted on 01/02/2011

Thank you

Lisa - posted on 01/02/2011

I completely agree with you :) I also heard an interesting point one time. This woman was speaking on a christian television show and she said that a lot of people ask her this same question and she said that if you think about it our society has pushed God out of the equation by taking him out of school out of government out of everything and that he has simply done as he was asked, he was asked to leave. I just thought I'd share an interesting thought :)

Pat - posted on 01/01/2011

of course we have a hard time understanding this...i heard a pastor say the answer is..... there are no good people.i dont know the verses off hand, but there are a couple in the bible. i do think there are people who are good in man's eyes and of course there are people who are very moral... but when we go through pain, we also get to experience the grace of God.

Keysha - posted on 12/29/2010

Amen! That truly helped me a lot.

Susan - posted on 12/27/2010

I would say look in your Bible. Job, Joseph, David, and Paul come to mind immediately. Bad things came to them, but Joseph said it best when talking to his brothers, they meant it for bad but God made it for His purpose.

Jennifer - posted on 12/21/2010

God allows trials so that we may grow. That is the long and short of it. If you see every trial as a learning experience then it's easier to get through. It's not a matter of "good" people or "bad" people. It's not even a matter of "Hey I'm a Christian my life should be perfect" God is our Father and wants us to be the best we can be. Also, being "good" isn't enough, but realizing that the more ensconced in Christ you are the harder Satan will try to get you out. God allows Satan's attacks to a certain point for each person. He doesn't allow more than we can handle - through HIM. If we are attacked and don't seek the Lord to help us then we're caught, but the minute we allow the Lord to handle a fight for us and we give it to Him, He wins! If you're (the "good" people) not ensconced in the Word, not a christian just a "good" person, well you may just drown in your troubles. If you never call for the ultimate Life jacket, He'll never come. And fool me once.... well fool me once shame on you, fool me twice you better run. :)

Rebecca - posted on 12/20/2010

Charles Stanley is my favorite preacher! He is one of the few whom I think truly speaks the word of God. I love his sermons, and he also has some great books, including bible studies. Thank you for sharing, Miriam!

MIRIAM - posted on 12/20/2010

I found a wonderful little paperback at a local Dollar General that deals with this subject. It is How to Handle Adversity by Charles F. Stanley. I picked up a couple more copies for friends who have read it as well. Inside mine I wrote a quote from Graham Cooke...God allows with His wisdom what He can easily prevent with His power. I often find that through the bad things that happen to me, regardless of the source, I learn invaluable lessons. When I apply what I learn, my walk with the Lord is strengthened. I try to adjust my focus away from the bad thing that happened and ask myself, "What can I learn from this to make me a better person?" We cannot do anything about others choices, but we can definitely do a lot about how we allow those choices to affect us. Standing firmly in our faith in God, knowing He will get us through any storm, will bring us out a stronger Christian.

Louise - posted on 12/17/2010

God loves us .God dont move we do when we are going through are period of time good or bad . i would say God is the same place when his son died for our use . so let more closer to him

Heather - posted on 12/17/2010

Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33) and he also said that we are to forgive seventy seven times (Matthew 18:22), if they hit us on the left cheek to turn the right to them as well, and if they steal our coat, we should give them our shirt also (Luke 6:29). Sometimes bad things are a way of giving us the opportunity to be a witness for Christ.

I'm not saying that you should stand by and watch your child be beaten, but we have to forgive the person while we protect our child. There are so many storied of martyrs, who stood up for what they believed in to the point of death. Even if it meant leaving their child without a parent, or even having their child killed with them. Each life was a testimony, even though I'm pretty sure those situations qualified as bad things. The Bible has information on how to handle everyone of life's circumstances, we just have to be willing to follow what it says. Not our will, but His be done.

Anne - posted on 12/17/2010

One thing we need to remember is that God Did Not Cause Bad things to happen.

Rebecca - posted on 12/16/2010

I think the hardest thing is wondering "why God let this happen to a child?" There's a story here locally about a man who dipped a baby in boiling water. He was burned from his feet to his bottom, and his hands were also burned. 36 days later, he died from infections that set in. This just happened last week. On the comments section of the news story, people were asking why God would let this happen? As a Christian, I don't ask that. And I'm not bitter at God. I know He has a purpose for everything. It's just hard to explain to other people, because I can't even put into words the reasoning. Maybe that's because we can never know God's reasons, only He does. But it would be nice to know what to say to those people who doubt there is a God, because why would a loving God allow this to happen?

BTW, it was the mother's boyfriend, a convicted murderer who had been released from prison. Afterwards, he and she both said it was an accident, and she said he would never do something like that...yeah right. Makes me sick. My son was burned as a baby and needed a skin graft, and his wasn't as bad as this boy, but still bad. So I can't even imagine what this poor child went through. He is with his Father, now, so he's no longer in pain, but is a perfect heavenly child of God! Amen!

Carla - posted on 12/16/2010

I think just about everyone has asked this question, at one time or another. People think that if we become Christians, God will never let anything bad happen to us. It seems, tho, to be exactly the opposite. This is the way it was explained to me:

We are ugly pots as humans. When we made the choice to serve God, He immediately starts to make something else out of us. After all, WE didn't like what we were, and neither did God! So, He turns the heat up, and the impurities, or dross, starts coming to the surface. We see this as anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, lust, etc. After we recognize it for what it is, we give it to the Lord, and He takes His spoon and starts scooping it off. Of course, we are still far from perfect, so He turns the heat up a little bit. More dross, more dipping. This process can be greatly accelerated, if we give Him full and unimpeded rein to keep turning up the heat. But this is extremely painful, and that is why most people don't submit to it. It's just way too hard, I shouldn't have to be the one to apologize, God knows the way I am, etc, our excuses are many. God is ALWAYS a gentleman, and doesn't do anything unless we give permission. But, in the end, we are transformed from an ugly mess into a beautiful piece of art, worthy of the Master Who made us.

All our trials are to prove to us and to the world that God in our lives is the difference between running to the bottle and drowning ourselves in liquor, or being able to stand firm and continue in our unyielding faith to Him.

Heather, Voddie's quote was great! We expect God to strike down our abusers, yet have ever so much understanding for us! Let's remember God gives us grace new, each day. We don't deserve it, we can't ever do anything to deserve it, God gives it as His supreme act of love. We need to take some of that and give to those offending us. I have heard some people say that God is a crutch for weak people. I have found that to be the exact opposite! God helps us to find out how strong we really are!

God bless, darlings!

Bonnie - posted on 12/16/2010

I do believe God knows all, sees all & is in control of all. That being said God gave man free will. Our actions our our own and we will be held accountable.

Now "in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose".

However, that does not excuse the behavior of the sinner it just shows Gods mercy.

When a sin is committed against us God guides us to forgiveness. However, I do not believe God intends his children to stay in a situation and/ or continue to associate with those who would do harm. God created us for his glory. When we get to heaven & God ask you how did you Glorify me. What will you say " I stayed with my abusive husband", "I stood by while my children were being hurt", etc,.

I don't think so....You learn from the past, the pains & your mistakes but you certainly don't glorify God by being stagnant and stupid.

Rebekah - posted on 12/16/2010

I agree with Heather, God works out ALL things for our good!

I also look at it this way, when bad things happen, we need to learn to praise God through the storm instead of nagging him for an escape - God is trying to teach you something, learn from it.

Heather - posted on 12/16/2010

I have heard some amazing sermons on this in the past. One that I love the most points out that none of us are really good people. We are all sinful by nature, and it is because of God's grace that we are even still alive. Voddie Baucham asks the question in reverse. How can God, knowing my inner thoughts and all of my sins, not have struck me dead in my sleep last night?

Another way to look at it is like with Joseph. What he originally thought was bad, God used for good. His brothers sold him into slavery, but God used him to rescue them. Our perception of bad is different then Gods. I had cancer as a baby, and I am ever so thankful because when my son was born with it I knew exactly what it was. I saw the signs and he was diagnosed extremely quickly. Having been through it myself made the whole ordeal tons easier on me. There are also other things in my life that could be classified as bad (or even horrid) that at the time they seemed like my life would be over, but every single one of them God has used in someway for His glory.

Romans 8:28
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.