Why do bad things happen?

Why do bad things happen?

There is one thing that we can all agree on.  Bad things happen.  After that it gets a little fuzzy.

 I was raise around a great group of people and an extraordinary family.  My mom got cancer when I was 6 and passed away when I was 12.  She was a single mom with an ex-husband that was dedicated to his family.  My sister and I saw struggle, but my mom did an amazing job to keep it from us as much as she could.  After my mom passed away people explained to me that everything happens for a reason and God won’t give us more than we can handle.  I hadn’t been taught the full gospel of Grace at that point, but something in my heart told me that what people were telling me wasn’t true. 

You see, the love that my parents gave me and the influence that people like my grandma had on me encouraged my belief system.  I knew Jesus came to save us and I was pretty convinced that God was a loving God.  At that age I simply refused to believe that the Love that I saw from my parents and family was greater than the Love that God had for us.  These people and this message in my life influenced who I am today and gave me the drive to announce for the rest of my life to anyone that would listen that God was a good God and God didn’t want bad things to happen to us. 

For me, the next logical step was the Word.  I began going to a church that taught out of the bible more than I had ever seen before.  I have always been analytically minded and have the type of wiring in my brain that doesn’t allow conflicting concepts in.  So, after reading about Jesus for myself I decided that he was good.  I quickly realized that the people that showed me love only had the capacity to share this love because they had seen a small glimpse of this God through their relationship with Love (God).   

Once I established my roots in the fact that God was good, and loving I started focusing on who I was to Him.  I found quickly that I was justified because of Jesus and my righteousness was established because of what Jesus did and not because of anything I can do (self-righteousness).  Now it was time to evaluate the things people had been telling me. 

I first looked at “everything happens for a reason.”  I found that most base this theology on Roman 8:28. So, I read all of Romans (and the rest of Paul’s writings).  Here it is:

Romans 8:28: And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose.

What is Paul saying here?  First, let’s ask a few questions.  Does God cause bad things?  Jesus made it pretty simple in John 10:10 when he said that “the Enemy…Kills, Steals, and destroys” and Jesus came to give us “life more abundantly.”  We can also look at history and ask why there was a flood and what happened with Ananias and Sapphira?  The Bible makes it clear that humans made such bad choices that God had no choice but to destroy them or the whole world would be overtaken by evil.  Did God cause that?  Are we all puppets to reach God’s ultimate plan?  Is God so small that he only has one path to a master plan?  I believe God is big enough that he can do what Paul is explaining here.  God can take what the enemy intended for bad and bring good out of it (for who?) for those that have chosen Him.  Furthermore in Genesis 6:5-7 the bible says that God regretted making man because of the choices of man.  If man was making choices for themselves then did God change since then? 

I started to ask “what is the root of these inconsistencies?”  I found out that when the King James Bible was printed they translated it specifically to promote God’s sovereignty.  Now, I believe that God is sovereign by definition.  However, I don’t agree with most Christian’s interpretation of sovereignty.  Sovereignty doesn’t mean that you cause everything that happens.  It means that you are supreme over all.  God gave us free will.  Why? Because Love can only operate under freedom.   Furthermore, we know that God is Love and we know that Love is not self-seeking, yet we attribute bad things to God because we believe He needs them to happen to achieve His ultimate plan at the expense of His Children.

The second thing people told me that I want to touch on in this blog is “God won’t give us more than we can handle.”  If you want to point to anywhere in the bible where this is discussed you must understand it in context and not connect it to someone’s bad fortune.  In the Bible this concept means that God gives us the capacity and the ability through his gifting and strength to achieve the dreams he has put on our hearts.  This is the hands and feet stuff that Jesus talked about. 

God revealed something to me last year about this topic “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”  God told me “the only reason why people have the ability to accept this concept is because of the country you live in.”  He went on to paint a picture for me of a story I heard about a couple years ago.  The story I saw explained that there was an epidemic in parts of Africa where millions of babies were being born and eventually dying because their mothers were being raped by men with AIDS.  When God brought this up it wrecked me.  He showed me pictures of this and reminded me that he doesn’t want that.  I started to think about this and realized if there was any American missionary that went to Africa and told them that God won’t give them anything they can’t handle they would laugh in their face.  The fact is that this world does give us more than we can handle, but we have a great God that heals, restores, and gives life to those that call His name. 

God is not a murderer, hit man, or the elf on the shelf.  He is a loving father and the purest definition of good.  He loves you deeply and isn’t interested in being a getaway driver for the enemy.  The enemy has stolen enough from us.  It is time that we stand up to the enemy and say “we aren’t going to accept your lies anymore.”  We need to say “we are the children of God and through the blood of Jesus we have concurred death and have authority in this world.”

He passionately loves you.