WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE?
This web page lists the various answers that religions give to the age-old question, "Why do bad things happen to good people." However, if you are currently suffering because something terribly bad happened to you, I'm afraid that this web page probably won't help you. It only provides reasons --- cold rational reasons. They don't address emotions at all.
Who is a good person?
No person is good, not one. (Romans 3:23) Every one of us has committed at least one sin, and the just penalty for one little sin is death. (Romans 6:23)
You see, God is good. (Psalm 100:5) God is perfectly good. God is like a beautiful wedding dress that is perfectly white. You want that dress more than you have ever wanted anything before, but it costs a fortune. Still, if you wore any other dress at your wedding, you would know that there is another one that is more beautiful. So, you buy that perfect dress, planning to return it for a refund after your wedding.
On your wedding day, you look in the mirror, and you are ecstatic! There has never been a more beautiful bride. As you walk to the sanctuary, you feel like you are floating. But unfortunately, you aren't floating, and you carelessly trip on something and fall forward onto the floor. And as luck would have it, there happens to be a push pin sticking straight up. It pierces your breast and a drop of blood emerges.
Now there is a tiny red spot on your dress. The dress is completely ruined. It's no longer perfect, and you dread being seen in it. There's no way you can return it, because, with that one tiny flaw, the dress is now completely worthless.
Like the dress, God is perfectly good, and the smallest sin would ruin His perfection. You think it's no big deal to entertain an impure thought, but God can't tolerate it. He cannot allow you to live if you commit that one little sin.
So if you think you're a good person, you are sadly mistaken.
What is a bad thing?
So you think that thing that happened to you is bad. But are you absolutely sure? You might not have all of the relevant facts. God is omniscient. He can see the entire space-time of our universe. He knows better than you do whether than thing is really bad.
The end justifies the means.
God believes that the end justifies the means. What looks like a bad thing to us can prove to be very good in the end. There are so many examples of this in the Bible. Here are a few:
- God decided that Jesus should suffer a horrible death on the cross (Acts 2:23), and all of his disciples thought that was a bad thing. But in the end, all of the followers of Jesus were forgiven for their sins, saving them from the punishment of God's wrath that they deserved (Ephesians 1:7).
- God caused Joseph to be sold into slavery (Genesis 37:28) and spend years in prison for a crime he didn't commit (Genesis 40:15). Joseph thought bad things were happening to him. But as a result of all this, Joseph became very powerful, so he was able to save his family, God's chosen people, from a famine. (Genesis 50:20)
- God led His chosen people into Egypt, where they were enslaved for 400 years. (Genesis 15:13) That surely seemed like a very bad thing to them. But it enabled God to rescue them (Exodus 14:30) and earn their love, trust, worship, and glory.
- God permitted Satan to ruin Job's life (Job 1:12), which seemed very bad to Job. But in the end, Job's suffering resulted in great glory for God. (___)
Unfortunately, you might not learn what the good consequences of that bad thing are while you are here on Earth. For example, imagine that two young people get married in ancient Israel. Their entire family and all their friends surround them to celebrate. And everything seems so good to them.
But then, the Roman empire, which controls Israel at the time, conquers a new province. They want to populate it, so they randomly choose people from throughout the empire and forcibly move them to the new province. The young couple are two of the unfortunate people who are chosen. They are absolutely devastated. They have lived in Israel all their lives. Their entire family and all of their friends live there. They are losing the life they knew and loved so much to go to a strange place where they know nobody. They can't understand why God would allow such a terribly bad thing to happen to them.
In the new province, they have children, and their children have children. Meanwhile, in Rome, Julius Caeser is murdered by Brutus ___, and all of his people are forced to flee for their lives. They arrive in that province, where the people welcome them and protect them from their enemies. After some time, they return to Rome and regain control. With their new power, they decide to reward those people who supported them, so they declare all of the people in that province to be Roman citizens.
Well, one of the great grandchildren of the two people who were exiled is a man named Paul. He moves to Jerusalem, and then he becomes a followed of Jesus Christ. He proceeds to bring God to the Gentiles. But he gets arrested and sentenced to death. It appears that his good work is at an end.
But as he is about to executed, he remembers that he is a Roman citizen. (___) That means that he cannot be executed, so he survives. And he goes on to save many many people. So that bad thing that happened to the young couple results in a very good thing happening to a great number of people. Although the couple died without ever knowing why that terribly bad thing did happened to them, it worked out for good in the end.
They lived happily ever after.
God has a wonderful grand plan for the human race, and it has an extremely happy ending. (Revelation 2___) Perhaps that bad thing that happened to you will help to bring about the kingdom of God. Are you sure it won't?
It could have been worse.
Maybe that bad thing is the lesser of two evils. You have no way of knowing what would have happened otherwise.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Just as a fire refines iron (___), pain can make you a better person. It can strengthen you, humble you, give you wisdom, etc.
He is teaching you a lesson.
Like a good parent, God disciplines His children to let them know when they have done something wrong. (Hebrews 12:5-11) Perhaps, if you didn't learn this lesson now, you would make a much bigger mistake later with far more painful consequences.
Free will
God is committed to letting people choose between good and evil. (___) As a consequence of this, He lets people choose to hurt you.
Satan
In the current age, Satan is the prince of the world (___). God is letting him run rampant, causing people to do terrible things. But the time will come when Satan gets what he deserves. (___)
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