| Author | Message | ||
| Rain Registered user Username: Rain Post Number: 37 Registered: 9-2011  |
I remember in 2005 we had an SDA "evangelist" roll through our area and put on a series. His first talk to hook in the audience was "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Of course, this was his way of introducing the Great Controversy worldview to the people listening. "Why, bad things happen in order to vindicate God's character, don't you see?" I know now that this view is incorrect and unconscionable in view of what Christ did. However, that question is left unanswered for me: why do bad things happen to good people? In the absence of a Great Controversy worldview, I've had trouble coming up with an answer. | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 1532 Registered: 7-2004  |
John 9: 1 As He passed by, He saw a man blind from birth. 2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. I don't know of any better Biblical answer. I thought that one of the best, most Biblically based answers to this question was found in Max Lucado's book Its Not About Me. http://www.amazon.com/Its-Not-About-Me-Thought/dp/159145042X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327346715&sr=1-1 | ||
| Grace_alone Registered user Username: Grace_alone Post Number: 2030 Registered: 6-2006  |
Another perspective ~ Luke 18:19, "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good--except God alone. (So a better question to ask would be "Why do bad things happen to 'nice' people?" To which I would ask, "why not? what makes them so much better than everybody else?" but I digress...) It's true, the works of God are displayed in us. He even provides us with the Holy Spirit to help us trust Him through our weaknesses. In addition, He graciously provides us with our basic needs (so much more than we deserve!). Still, He promises us over and over that He will never leave us. And that is where SDA theology (i.e. the IJ) falls flat on it's ugly face! Leigh Anne | ||
| Truman Registered user Username: Truman Post Number: 17 Registered: 1-2012 |
Bad things happen because it's a sinful and broken world, and sometimes because of peoples' actions (not in the example of the blind man, above). If a family inbreeds for 3 generations, it's much more likely the offspring will have birth defects, even if the 3rd generation parents are believers. (O.K., that was a strange example...sorry!) Jesus never promised that bad things would not happen to us. If anything, he said some bad things WOULD happen to us because of our belief in Him. ("You will be hated for my name's sake.") I have struggled with this, especially when seeing good people abused by others (especially kids). That can only be explained by the evil that has developed in this world - and that the consequences affect all of us, for a time. One thing that has helped me is to think of this life as a tiny point on a line that stretches to infinity. While that doesn't relieve the immediate pain, it does remind me that, eventually, the bad things of this life will seem so tiny and insignificant. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13338 Registered: 12-2003  |
Yes. Great posts above...God cursed the earth when Adam sinned, and Romans 8 tells us that He bound all creation over to decay until the sons of God would be revealed. We are born into the domain of darkness (Co 1:13) and subject to the spirit that is now at work in the children of disobedience (Eph 2:2). Bad things have no choice but to happen in a domain bound to decay and death. It is part of the curse of God on the earth. God is glorified when we believe in God the Son and receive His sacrifice and trust Him, receiving His life in our dead spirits. Ephesians 3:8-10 even say that the unfathomable riches of Christ and the mystery of the new covenant are revealed in order to make the "manifold wisdom" of God known "through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places." So, Leigh Anne's point that we are not good is right on. We are naturally dead. Yet God glorifies Himself in His intercepting time and space in the person of Jesus and bringing life and hope and love to an otherwise doomed planet. These things happen so that God will be glorified. Ultimately sin and evil serve the purpose of helping to reveal God's grace and glory which He poured out on us in and through the Lord Jesus and His blood of the eternal covenant! Colleen | ||
| Philharris Registered user Username: Philharris Post Number: 2645 Registered: 5-2007  |
To me there is an even greater question. Why does God love me even though there is nothing good about me except for the evil that he replaced with his agape love in my heart? Phil | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13342 Registered: 12-2003 |
Exactly, Phil. THAT is the unanswerable question! We are all miraculous rescues from darkness and death when we are transferred into the kingdom of His Beloved Son. Colleen | ||
| Starlabs Registered user Username: Starlabs Post Number: 37 Registered: 5-2011 |
I love the answers given. I espically agree that it is not about us. It is all about glorifying our Heavenly Father. To speak on a human level about us, i like what my professor said in my human anatomy class. Everyone always asks why something went wrong in say the development of the fetus. She said with all of the amazing reactions going on especially at the molecular level the question could be ask, why does anything go right. And it's true. God orchestrates and gives us so many blessings from our lungs transporting O2 in and CO2 out and our hearts beating to the neurons in our brains firing. We just take all of these processes for granted everyday. So things do go right. Job probably had those questions too but still trusted God's soverignity where his own limited knowledge could never give him an answer. | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 7642 Registered: 9-2006  |
I had a friend who was Chief of police in Raineer Oregon, we had been friends for over 25 years, had worked a business together and so I feel I knew him probably better than most because we worked side by side every day. He just wanted to be a policeman, I told him it was dangerous work, but he said, I want to be able to help people. He was kind and generous and a Christian through and through. Last year he was called on a disturbance at a local stereo store, the man was fooling around the cars and the owners wanted him gone. As was his kind way, he walked over just to talk to the man, the man attacked him, took his gun and shot him through the head. My little Sister was killed the same way. At her funeral a childhood friend preached the funeral. He said this, "It was not Gods will that Arvelle was cut off so young in life, but because of sin in the world. The useless way my friend and my little sister died was not Gods will, but because of sin in the world. We have a hope and we better not build here because we are sojourners in a lost and dying world. Why do bad things happen to good people? Because of sin in the world. Six words, because of sin in the world. River (Message edited by river on January 23, 2012) | ||
| Starlabs Registered user Username: Starlabs Post Number: 39 Registered: 5-2011 |
Oh, wow, River I didn't realize that about your sister. That must have been painful for you and your family. | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 1550 Registered: 7-2004 |
River, My heart goes out to you over both your friend and your sister. And I have debated posting my response to the "sin is in the world" answer to the question of why bad things happen to people because I didn't want to be insensitive to your pain. So if I sound in the least bit insensitive, ignore it, forget it and forgive me. The "sin in the world" response does provide a basic framework for understanding bad things happening. But it only goes so far. If we believe that God knows everything that will happen in this world; if we believe that God can and does intervene in this world; if we believe that God is all powerful; then we will have the inevitable question "Why does God work miraculously in some cases and not in others?" This is the question that I believe is at the root of the "Why do bad things happen to good people question". And, I fear, that answer requires us to trust in God in very hard and profound ways. | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 1551 Registered: 7-2004 |
What I found interesting when I actually started reading and studying the book of Job was how different the actual story was from what I had been taught. God had to confront Job very directly with His sovereignty before Job repented. | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 7648 Registered: 9-2006 |
No worries Rick, I am learning to read your posts, given, it has taken a while.  Yes the 'sin in the world answer does only provide a basic frame, it doesn't provide an answer to why a child dies in some accident, nor does it cover a myriad other questions directly. I think the 'sin in the world' does allow us to trust in the sovereignty of God if we will allow it,at least the words were a comfort to me in my time of deep suffering over the loss of a loved one. The reason it does comfort is because without it I was able to get past the perpetrators of a horrible crime, as in the case of my sister, not only against her, but my mother, father, brothers and her two children and as in the case of my buddy, his whole family. Sometimes a basic framework answer is just enough. Still I agree it is just a basic framework. My younger brother wanted to kill him outright, but I was able to say no, put the gun down. River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 13353 Registered: 12-2003 |
River, you have lived through horrendous pain. Thank you for sharing your life with us here. Rick, I agree with your statement above. At the bottom line, we have to trust God because He cannot lie, and His promises are true whether we feel like they are or not. Philippians 4:6 tells us to be anxious for nothing...and that's a command, not a platitude. It is only a command, however, because God's promise to guard our hearts with His peace if we pray and trust (Phil. 4:7) is also true. God doesn't command us to trust and to cease from worry as some sort of spiritual discipline. He asks us to trust Him and not be anxious for anything because He is our Father, and He knows that His Father's love is what we need. He is asking us to trust Him without knowing the outcome because the issue is Him...not our transient physical experience. Our physical experience matters, but our trust must be in our Father, not in our ability to stay physically in control. If that makes sense...(sometimes I worry that my thoughts sound a bit trite when I try to put them into words). Colleen | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 1552 Registered: 7-2004 |
Colleen, I am afraid that any time we are discussing isues involving great emotional pain, our written words sound a bit trite. It is only in knowing one another that we can begin to understand the heart behind the words. | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 7649 Registered: 9-2006 |
It makes perfect sense to me Colleen and not the least bit trite, because when we face these things however difficult to understand why they happen, a deep and abiding trust in God helps you to just get through the next minute, a time when its not hours or days, but minutes, when a minute seems like a day and when a day seems like a week. Anything I've went through is nothing different that what other people has or will go through. In the space of a short time, when the world seems like it has fallen in around you as in the case of one of our sisters right this minute. We need to prepare our hearts ahead of time because it can strike suddenly in the middle of the night, we need to learn that deep and abiding trust early on. River | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 345 Registered: 2-2011 |
~River~ I am sorry for your painful lose~ Over the years I have come to realize that God does not give us 'explanations, but promises'. ~mj~ | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 916 Registered: 8-2008 |
"Why does God work miraculously in some cases and not in others?" Another take on seemingly senseless death of a Christian is to ask, "Why does Christ allow some of us to go home to be with Him while others must live on for decades after?" I hope this doesn't sound trite here, and I certainly am not trying to trivialize the loss to us of a someone who loved the Lord. When we mourn, we don't so much mourn a Christian dying as we do the fact that we ourselves will have to wait many years to be reunited with him. But this is a thought I have after reading a biography of Bonhoeffer. He was quite clear that he believed death was a release for the Christian, when the Christian finally gets to be with his Lord, never again to face the wickedness of this world. As Paul said, "To live is Christ, and to die is gain." Some might lament the fact that Bonhoeffer was murdered by the Nazis only two weeks before Hitler killed himself and Germany surrendered. Clearly we're the poorer for losing Bonhoeffer. But it is clear from his writings and sermons that he undoubtedly saw his own death as a reward for his steadfast service to the Lord. As far as the death of a Christian is concerned, I merely want to posit the possibility that God sees it the opposite of the way we do. (Message edited by bskillet on January 25, 2012) | ||
| Skeeter Registered user Username: Skeeter Post Number: 1785 Registered: 12-2007  |
Bskillet, "As far as the death of a Christian is concerned, I merely want to posit the possibility that God sees it the opposite of the way we do." I think you may be right When a Christian "dies" it is OUR loss, We mourn because we have lost them to this earthly life and we miss them. But, if we were able to get past OUR feelings of loss and see what THEY have GAINED, maybe our loss would not feel so great, and just maybe we would be able to even feel a certain joy for the person who has passed from the cares of this earth and is now in our eternal home. Hard... very hard to let them go, and yet.... to imagine them with Jesus and all the amazing experiences they must be having... shouldn't that bring a certain peace to those of us still here ? Makes me feel "homesick for Heaven" | ||
| Truman Registered user Username: Truman Post Number: 23 Registered: 1-2012 |
Good point, a Bskillet. Perhaps it is some comfort to know they are better off now (if we believe they are in a better place). I wonder if sometimes we mourn because doubt enters our minds regarding the afterlife. Haven't given it much thought, it just occurred to me. River, I don't know you, other than what I know from reading your posts, but I'm so sorry for your losses. My thoughts and prayers are with you. Speaking from my experience, the most difficult part of losing a brother was seeing the impact on his family (wife and son), and on my parents. They say the greatest pain is when a parent loses a child. One of the most powerful moments for me in "The Passion of the Christ" was when Mary watches Jesus fall while carrying the cross, and she flashes back to when he would fall as a boy - and she instinctively runs to his side to help him. (Yes, I know all the problems with the movie, and that part is not in the Bible....but it was plausible and powerful.) I can not even imagine the pain of seeing one of our kids being crucified. I suppose that was the utimate example of bad things happening to good "people" (and God), though it was far more than that. There was certainly a purpose for it, and I am so thankful and blown away that He allowed it to happen, despite our unworthiness. |
