Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
Part II
In my office I have a little book entitled: The Question that Never Goes Away. It talks about the Tsunami that hit Japan in 2011, the ravages of war that took Sarajevo from an Olympic town to a burned out shell, and the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut in December of 2012.
The question that never goes away is, of course: “Why?”
Why do these senseless, tragic, evil things happen in our world? Why does the crust of the earth crack and shake and send walls of water into the shore with the speed of a jetliner? Why do people feed on hatred and racism and greed to fight wars that never seem to end? Why does a young man from a privileged background force his way into a school and methodically start shooting first graders? Why?
Last month I began answering the question we are always asking: Why do bad things happen to good people? My first answer was one I said we probably wouldn’t like very much: We don’t know. This is a persistent question because it is filled with mystery. We don’t have a definitive understanding, but we trust that our Sovereign God does. When we don’t have a complete explanation for suffering, we find comfort in the confidence that God is still in control.
Now, our second answer is: a world in which we are free to choose to love God is necessarily a world in which suffering is possible.
If God made it so that we could only ever do exactly the right thing we’d be more like puppets than the human beings we are now. Under this scenario the puppet-master could keep us from all harm by always stopping us before we enter a dangerous situation, but there is no sense in which we could claim to be free—or, truly, even alive. In order for our love for God to be real love, there must be the possibility of non-love. And thus there is the possibility of suffering.
You may wonder why God allows specific calamities. You may wonder why God didn’t destroy the bacteria that led to the infection which killed your father, or disable the car before it swerved into your friend, or change the heart of your spouse before he or she filed for divorce, or any of an infinite number of other possibilities. But the fact remains, a world which was engineered to bring you pleasure at every moment would necessarily be a world in which I would eventually find frustration.
C.S. Lewis, in a book called The Problem of Pain, puts it like this:
“If a man travelling in one direction is having a journey down a hill, a man going in the opposite direction must be going up hill…We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of [the] abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults.
But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void…”
God wants us to freely choose to love Him, even when that choice involves pain—because we are committed to Him, not to our own good feelings and rewards. In order for us to truly choose to love God, we must live in a world that has not been engineered to guarantee that choice.
The world is fallen. Other people are fallen. We are fallen. In a world like that, bad things are going to happen. But there is also the potential for us to make the right choice, and choose to love and trust God. It means there is the beautiful option of turning toward the Savior, even as pain might tempt us away.
September Birthdays
6 Ron Negan, Carly Kramer
8 *Adrian Bobb
10 *Abebja Kelly Bent
12 Louise Miller
16 Sam Cordes
17 Ellah Klingenborg
18 Ben Ackerman, Destiny Jones
28 Ami Cordes
30 Tripp Ulfers
*Missionary Family Birthday
September Anniversaries
17 Chad & Rebecca Jones
25 Matt & Michelle Eberline
26 Michael & Natasha Shafer
Greeting & Refreshments for Fellowship Time
September 6 – Pastor Russell & Beth, Gary & Denise Abbas
September 13—Ellah & Colton Klingenborg, Troy & Kristol Ulrich
September 20 – Arlin & Greta Eberline, Barb DeBoer
September 27 - Robert & Kristen Wix, Ethan & Shelby Ulfers
September Sound/Projector Operator Schedule
September 6 - Tim Junker
September 13 – Isaac Trees
September 20 - James Seehusen
September 27 - Ryan Fleshner
Video Operator Schedule
September 6 - Lucas Junker
September 13 - Chad Osterbuhr
September 20 - Michael Shafer
September 27 - Jodi Bangasser
September Praise Team Schedule
September 6 - Praise Team 1 (Denise)
September 13 - Airyn Duffy (Denise)
September 20 - Praise Team 3 (Denise)
September 27 - Praise Team 4 (Denise)