 |
|
 |
|
|||
| [ Home | Jesus | Miracles | Articles | Gallery | About | Contact ] |
|
How do I become a Christian? New Jesus Evidence Church Questions
Recommended Creation Other Photo Tips Reviews Glossary |
Why do bad things happen?If God is a powerful God and a loving God at the same time then why do bad things happen? Over the years I’ve tried to think up a pat answer that could somehow help people become aware of what God has revealed to me. Deep down I know that God loves us in spite of what the world is like. Deep down, I’m convinced that the character of God is completely trustworthy. The only problem is that words are inadequate to convey what I know to you. It took time to convince me. God had to reveal this to me through a series of events. See Does God love you?. In the end only God is able to show this to you, I urge you to pray and ask God to reveal his love and character to you. I’m not saying that God will give you the answer to every question that you have but that he can give you a “conviction” (a sense of knowing instinctively) that you can trust him and as you do trust him, he will reveal his love and trustworthiness to you time and time again.Having said that, I will try to convey what I can to you. There is actually no pat answer for everyone. A straight out theological answer could be insensitive to someone going through real grief. There is no one size fits all answer, so I will try to answer what you might really be saying. Are you saying one of the following things? I’m a hardened sceptic and I don’t think you can answer the question at all.See To the ScepticsI’ve been through a tragic situation and I need a shoulder to cry on, what can you do for me?All I can do here is reassure that God does love you and is deeply concerned about your situation. Please ask God to help you through the situation.Ultimately though, a web site is too impersonal a place to deal with a situation like this. I strongly recommend that you find a group of mature Christians (especially ones that have been trained in grief counselling) who can share your burden with you and pray for you. God does not want you to go through this alone. Please ignore anyone (including Christians) who tell you that your suffering is somehow your own fault. While I do imply that sin is the ultimate cause of suffering in the following section of this article; that does not mean that you have done anything worse than anyone else. Sometimes there are no clear-cut explanations and the best thing for you is to find a shoulder to cry on. See How do you find the right Church? Can you explain what the Bible says about pain and suffering?The problem with pain and suffering is that when you are going through difficult times it is very difficult to see the big picture. Heaven can seem an eternity away when you are sick or have lost a love one. God sees the end from the beginning. He sees the reason that all these things happen. Even though we can not imagine what possible good can come out of times like these when we are going through them the Bible says in Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose.” 2 Corinthians 4:17 says “For our present troubles are quite small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us an immeasurably great glory that will last forever!”Of course to us our troubles don’t seem so small to us but when you compare them with the great future that God has planned for us, they are. This life is not even a drop in the ocean compared to eternity. Jesus himself was no stranger to pain and suffering. Isaiah 52:14 NLT says “Many were amazed when they saw him—beaten and bloodied, so disfigured one would scarcely know he was a person”. Mel Gibson was criticized for the graphic nature of his movie “The Passion of the Christ” but he did not make it as graphic as the real thing. The point is that we will not suffer as much as Jesus did and he is not asking us to go through anything he was not prepared to face himself. Apart from his crucifixion, he faced a number of disadvantages during his life. People thought he was an illegitimate child. He grew up in a poor nation that was occupied by the Romans. His father died at a young age. He grew up in a village that had a bad reputation. He lived in a time when there were no modern conveniences or communication. He worked as a carpenter. Although he healed the sick and raised the dead, he was hated and rejected by his own people. In spite of those disadvantages, as Napoleon has been quoted as saying, Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. But why do bad things have to happen at all?So what is the cause of pain and suffering? The Bible shows us that pain and suffering started in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were perfect when God created them. The world was perfect before they rebelled against God but they deliberately choose to do what they were clearly told not to do. Not only were they told not to do it but also God made it clear that the consequence of their action would be severe. So if they messed up, what has that got to do with us? If we were in the same situation as Adam and Eve we would probably have done the same thing. The fact is we all mess up. The Bible says that we have all sinned. (See Rom 3:23) If we are honest with ourselves we will admit that we done some things that were very selfish or unkind at some point in our lives.To what lengths should God go to stop evil?To really understand why things are the way they are we would need to see things from God’s point of view. That is not easy for us. There are two aspects to God’s character that are beyond our comprehension. One aspect is his infinite love for us and the other is his perfect justice.Why doesn’t God just say “Oh well, I’ll just zap everyone and they will all be nice to each other and I’ll just forget every bad thing that ever happened”? God could instantly make a universe full of gold or diamonds if he wanted to. God can do anything for himself that he wanted except for one thing. The one thing God cannot do for himself is force us to serve him out of our own free will. We would be nothing but robots if God controlled our free will. When God created Adam he gave him a free will.God also gave Adam control over the world. God’s rules are not there just to make life hard for us. God’s rules are fences that are meant to keep us away from danger. We have the choice to obey God and know his blessing or we can choose to disobey him. When we disobey him we cannot blame God when things go wrong. God cannot just forget injustice. His sense of justice demands payment for injustice just as our lungs demand air. So here we have a situation where the two sides to God’s nature conflict. His sense of justice demands payment for every wrong thing ever done but his infinite love demands that he forgives us. So how did God get around this problem? He sent Jesus to die as the payment for everything that we have ever done or ever will do that was against his sense of perfect justice. No one misses out on going to Heaven because of their sin, they miss out because they choose to reject Jesus and his free gift of forgiveness. Since God has a perfect sense of justice, he does not know where to draw the line when it comes to stopping evil from happening. To him a lie is an extremely bad thing, just like murder is an extremely bad thing to us. The only way he can eliminate evil completely would be to eliminate us or turn us into robots. Neither God nor we want either of those things to happen. God hates sin but loves the sinner in the same way that we hate cancer but love the patient. Sin is something that cannot be ignored, sin must be dealt with. That’s why Jesus died and rose again. He did all of that to provide a way of dealing with our sin. How does God Help Us?God has not just left us to our own devices. Because of Jesus death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead we have hope. We have hope not just for the next life but for this life as well. When we are born again, God comes into our life and changes us. He gives us inner strength and joy to help us face whatever we might be going through. In fact it is often in the most difficult times that God will reveal his love and power to us. It was when I faced an extremely difficult time in my own life that God revealed his love to me. See Does God love you?If you want to know how God can help you see How do you become a Christian? Posted July 23, 2006 |