Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People? PART I

Why Do Good People Suffer Along With Bad People?

How can a good God who is all knowing and all powerful let these bad things happen to innocent people? How is He not guilty of wrong doing himself in such a case? And how does even asking these questions not put us in jeopardy of judging God?

I will attempt of answer some of these questions as they are very common and often used as a deadly argument by the Enemy who uses the confusion about questions of justice to try and separate us from the love of God. Because we do not understand the treachery and contempt of the Enemy, or the intensity of the battle for truth or the reality of spiritual warfare, their power to alienate us from God and infect us with a bitterness and distrust of God is remarkably effective.

Misunderstanding the “bad things” that happen to good people causes many to misunderstand the chastening of the Lord, (Hebrews 12). As a result, they reject His salvation and turn away from His Word. They end up becoming an effective tool in the hand of the Devil in his attempt to destroy faith in the goodness of the One True God. When we do not understand why bad things happen to us, we are tempted to become discouraged and turn away from following Christ Jesus. If we only knew what was really at stake here and that the real political agenda of the Devil is to brainwash and enslave the whole world, we would seek to know the truth about why bad things happen to us.

The terrain in this fight for truth and freedom is tricky and hard to navigate if we try to establish our “bearings” through our own experiences. What does that mean? That means I try to make sense of what is going on around me using my own past experiences as the main point of reference for truth. I believe because I “experienced it myself” I can trust what I experienced as real and genuine. I believe it will provide me with a sound basis from which to judge or compare future events. My own experience, which generates either good or bad feelings, becomes my platform for the formation of my opinion in making a decision about what has just happened to me.

With this internally generated information, I try to manage and control my situations, maintain my safety and predict the outcome of other similar things using my reasoning to “figure things out”. I fail to realize two critical things, however: that the Enemy is always there, in my mind and heart, working to “interpret” those experiences for me, and he is the one who “set up” the problem or dilemma, in the first place.

He sets me up hoping I will use my “free will” to choose to believe his lie. Agreeing with his lie and using his solution to the problem brings me into agreement with him and his suggestion, i.e. the lie, which brings forth sin. (See James 1:14-15). He can now accuse me of it “being my fault” because “it was my choice”. “I did it!” And though that is technically true, I did sin, the ultimate responsibility for that sin should fall on the head of the one who tricked me in the first place, i.e., liar who deliberately set me up. My responsibility is to confess it as sin and receive the forgiveness that the Lord promised me.