What a question.
You hear over and over that people's bad experiences shape their view of God. This question seems to be a sticking point for a lot of people; "If God is so good and loving, why do bad things happen to good people?"
To begin to try and answer the question, I think there are 2 things to consider:
+ We live in a broken world
+ God gives us free will to make our own decisions
One.
The frame or lens that I look through for both parts is that we live in a world that is broken.
How is it broken?
The world was designed by God for humans so that we could share in God's 'good'ness. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked and talked physically with God because there was nothing to separate them from Him. God is Holy, and what I mean by that is that God is all omnipresent (everywhere, always), almighty, omnipotent (unlimited power), and 'good' in its perfect form. God is love and goodness, He is so holy, that things that are not holy, physically cannot be in his presence. It's like trying to plug a HDMI plug into a USB port, it just can't happen.
At a point described in Genesis 3, (but whether you believe in Adam and Eve or not…) we got separated from God through our disobedience (sin), so God left the world in body. So, now the Spirit of God is on Earth, as everything living has God's spirit, most of all in humans where his Spirit not only lives but can 'dwell', but His presence is only here in part.
We're left with God's good Earth, where goodness lives and breathes but something is missing. The goodness is corrupted, it's had an error or a virus.
Hopefully that's framed the situation, let's now explore how that corruption manifests itself physically. The brokenness of the world can be seen everywhere:
+ Pain
+ Corruption
+ Greed
+ Selfishness and all kind of disobedience that separates humans from God
+ Disease and sickness
+ Famine
+ Addiction
+ Exploitation
+ Even death
All of these things are not Godly, but they are part of the world we live in until the world is made whole again by God Himself.
Two.
The second part is that when God made us, He gave us the freedom to make our own decisions. He created us to be loving beings, not robots that had no choice other than to be 'good'. So, free will.
Without free will we are zombies, robots, slaves, slaves bent to the will of another - a loving God could never have created us like that, there is no love in slavery.
With free will comes temptation. Temptation is a part of the broken world, and everyone is subject to it, and will experience it every day. Temptation is not a sin, acting on the temptation is the sin. Believe it or not, we have the choice whether to act on that temptation or not. It's easier sometimes more than others, right! But it's still our choice to resist or not.
As humans we are inherently good because we are in the image of God, but we are also broken because we are part of the world. People have the choice to hurt other people, and they have the choice to put themselves before anyone else, they have the choice to disobey the laws of the nation they live in and God. That is their choice, and no-one can stop them. Even the atrocities done in the name of God - the crusades for example, slavery another, colonisation another, all done in the name of God (wrongly), they were done by, and for, humans' selfish gain.
So hopefully that provides a bit of clarity on why people can do bad things to others; the other side to the coin is why can bad things happen to people where humans are not involved?
Illness, natural disaster, famine, old age? What's all that about? If God was so loving he'd never let those things happen to anyone, especially not children…
Again, all of these things are the result of the world that we live in, mutation in cells that cause disease and cancer, changes in weather that affect whole nations ability to grow food, the very fact that we get older, is all down to the fact that when we first dropped the ball in disobedience, cracks started to appear in the fabric of the earth.
But I hear you…
"If God is so powerful, and in control, why did he let [……….] happen?"
It's tough. I do think there are a few misconceptions here though. Firstly, yes God is all powerful, but he is not a puppeteer, he doesn't sit in a director's chair and shout action, dictating the events of the world. God has the power to do anything he likes, but if he used it every time something bad was about to happen, are we not back at the robots question? "I'm going to give you free will, but…..", "I'm going to give you freedom to make your own choices, but in this case I'm going to override you". Surely we either have free will, or we don’t? There can be no half measures.
In the same way, God does not perform the actions of the world. He does not make people do things, he does not cause people to get ill, he does not inflict pain, he doesn't allow people to die prematurely, he doesn't make earthquakes happen. Basically God does not <verb> anything. If He did, we're back to the master puppeteer, divine slaver or Director in a chair picture, where everything bends to His whim. I believe we have choices, we don't have 1 path in life, a rigid script that we follow with no other options; that doesn't equate to free will in my humble opinion.
“Nobody knows what horrors I have saved the world from 'cuz people can't see what never happened. All evil flows from independence, and independence is your choice. If I were to simply revoke all the choices of independence, the world as you know it would cease to exist and love would have no meaning. This world is not a playground where I keep all my children free from evil. Evil is the chaos of this age that you brought to me, but it will not have the final say. Now it touches everyone that I love, those who follow me and those who don't. If I take away the consequences of people's choices, I destroy the possibilities of love. Love that is forced is no love at all.”
William P. Young from his book, 'The Shack'
This might all seem a bit doom and gloom :(
However, God was never going to let his beautiful creation self-destruct! He may not always stop bad things from happening, but he is always there to help us up out of the dark holes we find ourselves in. Time and time again he has reached out to his people to help them back to their feet when they have fallen. The brokenness does fight back, knocks us back over, but God comes in and picks us back up all over again.
God turns bad into good.
God turns pain and suffering into Joy and Peace. And he promises never to give up on us.
No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.
Joshua 1:5
So God has been in battle with the 'World' for millennia; since the first people walked on the earth. More specifically the 'Prince of the World', the 'Deceiver', the 'Tempter' - the devil. He is the one who tempts us, causes us to fall over, tells us that we are worthless, insignificant, unimportant, unable, weak, scared.. All lies!!! However the devil has done a pretty good job of keeping the world a broken place.
But God had a finisher, a check-mate, a final coup de grace when he reached out to the world by making Himself human in the form of Jesus, to once and for all, defeat brokenness, defeat death, and bring the world back to order and rightness.
God has physically created 2 men. Adam and Jesus. Adam messed up, and for it he had to die (not through like execution or anything, just through old age). Jesus on the other hand, never messed up, he lived a perfect life and never once gave into temptation. Jesus then was not condemned to die, he was 'right with God', he had nothing to answer for.
But, He did.
He made the ultimate sacrifice; the perfect sacrifice and died for the brokenness of the world. When that perfect man died, the brokenness of the rest of the world was sent to the grave with Him, and when he arose from the grave, the brokenness of the world was wiped clean, and to those who believe in that sacrifice, we are made 'right with God', we came up clean from the grave, the sentence to death (through age) was lifted from all those who believe.
Adam forced the gap between humans and God; Jesus bridged the gap for all those who will follow Him over it.
In addition, God does not let brokenness lie, he does not let hurt just go by the wayside. He turns sadness and suffering into joy and peace and light.
I had a conversation with a friend recently who lost a child; still born at full term. Obviously you cannot think of a much more tragic event, the pain that she felt must at times have been unbearable. But God uses these times of weakness and suffering to his good. My friend had help though the episode from a charity that offer support to mothers who have lost a child through birth, miscarriage or just after birth. My friend is now training to become a support worker for that charity to help others who have been though the same experiences that she has. Incredible & inspiring. An horrendous ordeal has created so much compassion and the vocation to help others as she was helped. Our pain and suffering is training. God uses our experience to prepare us for what he has prepared for us!
God has transformed disappointment in my own life into blessing. He has turned suffering to joy, I have been in low places and in those places I knew God's presence; He brought me out and set me on a path that I could not have walked had I not gone through those dark times.
So in summary, bad things happen to everyone, it's not anyone's fault, they just happen because we are part of the world. People do bad things amongst the good, because selfishness and greed gets in the way of selflessness and generosity. We all make mistakes, but God does not punish us, quite the opposite actually, He helps us to our feet and shows us how falling over can help us move forward.
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