Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

As dwellers in a foreign and hostile land, we are often perplexed by pain and suffering. In this life, we see "as through a glass darkly, then, face to face." Likewise, all our attempts to explain the workings of the supernatural are going to seem very simplistic when we find out the real truths. However, since fools rush in where wise men fear to tred, I will attempt to list some of the reasons why bad things happen to good people:

1. Satan is an adversary of God, and is trying to ruin God's plans and His reputation. Although modern theologians are uncomfortable with the thought of a powerful and evil spiritual entity, Jesus believed in the existence of Satan, and that's good enough for me. We must be cautious not to ascribe all activities to God, because He has created a world with free agents (people, angels, fallen angels and Satan). In doing so, God realized this would create chaos, but without free agency, love is undefined. And the concept of love is so important to God, He tolerates chaos to engender it.

2. Death is not an ending, but a graduation. Then, the real work begins. The concept of lying around in heaven, on clouds, playing harps, is unscriptural. Jesus spoke of ruling nations, having many times more authority and responsibility in heaven, based upon our behavior on earth.

3. In spite of free agency, God is crafting beauty in the independent actions of billions of entities, because, pardoxically, He really is in control, in spite of free agency. When I was a child, I used to watch an artist on TV Saturday mornings. He would invite one of the children in the audience to come up to his board and scribble. Then he would ask, "What do you want me to make of your scribble?" The child would say, "kangeroo," or "elephant." And whatever that child said, that's what that scribble became in the skillful hands of the artist. Not a kangeroo with a scribble on it, but a kangeroo where the lines of the scribble became the lines of the animal. It is the same in our earthly journey. Satan scribbles lines of heartache, pain and suffering in our lives. His intent is to destroy us. And God is aware of Satan's intentions.

[Let me diverge here briefly. I used to ride my bicycle to work. I was always late, so I would run through stop signs and stop lights to shorten the time. I knew this wasn't a good thing to do as a Christian, but I rationalized it away. One morning, God spoke to me quite clearly, "Can you give Me any reason for not stopping at stop lights?" When phrased so directly, all my rationalizations melted away. I promised Him I would stop from then on. On the way home that night, I started speeding up, preparing to run the first stop sign of the trip home. It bordered on a two-lane highway at the foot of an overpass where I would need the extra speed to keep up with traffic. Then, I remembered my "discussion" and promise to God. I coasted to that stop sign instead. When I put my brakes on, nothing happened! A car was coming. I had to drag my feet and turn onto the soft dirt shoulder to avoid that car. Both of my brake cables had been cut! I had an enemy at that time who went to such extremes. But, in the midst of the anger I felt at what my enemy had done, I realized this was a parable of God's care! Satan, as he did with Job in the Bible, had gone to God and demanded permission to cut my brake cables. God allowed it. But then God came to me for the fireside chat about not running stoplights ("God will not allow you to be tempted above your ability to resist, but will, with the temptation, provide the way of escape.") I didn't have to take the "way of escape" because of my free agency. But, because I did, I'm alive today and thankful to God.]

Back to my original point. Satan sees a flaw in our lives and says, "I can make (somebody's name) fall and turn against God by exploiting that flaw!" God sees the flaw too, and allows Satan to expose it, that we may have our attention drawn to it, and correct it by the provision God supplies. If we take the pencil that Satan has dropped after scribbling in our lives and say to God, "Heal me... love me... fix this pain...", God will take the very painful scratches of Satan, meant for our destruction, and turn them into lines of beauty, to the glory of His Name. In this life, we are too close to the canvas to see the beauty. In heaven, we will be able to draw back from the canvas and see the true work of art that God has crafted with our pain and our faithfulness.

4. Your friend is a beautiful person [the one who had died]. She blessed your life. You received that blessing because you took the risk of loving, feeling and making friends. Because you took that risk you bought into the pain of losing your friend. But, with that pain, you bought beauty and good times. Do not rob yourself of future blessings in order to protect yourself from future hurts. This is life. We are hurt by it, but we are also made better people by the hurting experience. That is the power of God manifested in the frail human vessels that we are.

5. These words of mine are a feeble attempt to sketch the revelation you will have once you get to heaven, if you've accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. You may walk up to me in heaven and say, "Jim, you sure did a poor job of explaining pain and suffering to me in that letter you wrote!" And, you'll be justified in the accusation. But, for now, perhaps this simplistic attempt will keep you close to God, and defeat Satan's plans to turn you against Him.

The Bible says we are only exiles here... that our real home is in heaven.

A good book on this subject is "Don't Waste Your Sorrows," and the author is Billheimer, I believe. He also wrote, "Destined for the Throne," which is excellent.

"A Christian should be to work on time." Don't we do that a lot? We put ourselves into a position where we have to choose between two evils and we congradulate ourselves for picking the lesser, instead of getting out of the position of poor choices.

"All things work together to the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose."

Satan knows he's just a trespasser and cannot hang around for long.

The girl who asked the question wondered if it would be better not to form friendships, since they were so fragile.