James Meehan - WHY Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?
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Why do bad things... Bite my tongue, I bit my tongue. Why do bad things happen to good people? That's what we're talking about today. Let's talk about this. Why does God allow evil and suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? That was the question that they gave to me. Why does God allow suffering? Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, really, let's break this down. There are three questions here. The first one is, why does God allow evil? The second is, why does God allow suffering? Two different ones. Then the third is, why do bad things happen to people that I don't think deserve bad things to happen to? That's really what you're asking, right?
So let's get started with that last one. Why do bad things happen to good people? There's an assumption in there and really the question that's behind that is, are some people less deserving of bad things happening to them and some people more deserving, right? That's the idea and that idea that in life, good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. Is it a Christian idea? That's called karma, that's a Hindu idea. Jesus didn't teach karma. God doesn't love you more or want better things for you because you're a better person than someone else. Jesus loved His freaking enemies. He said, "God causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good. He sends reign on the righteous and the unrighteous".
That's in Matthew five. But here's the truth of the matter, okay, brace yourself, we're all bad people. We were made in the image of God and He called us good and then each of us messed it up. Psalm 14 says that all have turned away. All have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one. Not even one. We're all wicked. We're all wicked. We're all evil. I have the same roots of prejudice and pride and greed and deceit as the worst villain that you can imagine. None of us are deserving of good. That technically, historically, the only bad things that happened to a good person happened to Jesus. He was the only good person. The rest of us have corrupted ourselves from the inside out and we don't deserve good things.
Okay, so hard truth. But if we can all agree that we, all of us planted a seed of evil so deep within ourselves that we can't pull it out on our own, then let's go back to that first question. Why does God allow evil? Here's the short of it, evil things come from people choosing evil. Everything evil other than the lies of the enemy come from human choices. We got death, sickness, natural disasters, decay, all of it. If it's evil, you can trace it back to people's choices that reflect how they didn't love God back. Ooh. So like in Romans eight, if you read Romans eight, it says that all creation groans in pain and waits to be freed from its constant decay. We did that.
So when you boil down that, why does God allow evil question, what you're asking is why does God allow anyone to have a choice? Right? Well, it's because God didn't want us to be rocks and robots. You can't have a relationship with something that doesn't want a relationship, something that doesn't want, it doesn't have choice. He wanted a relationship and He decided that our free choice was worth it. He didn't want pets or science projects. God says 1 John, God is love, love. God made us to love us and to be loved in return. So if God were to destroy all evil on the earth and wipe it out, He'd be wiping you out with it and He'd rather give you a second chance. He decided you were worth it.
Okay, okay, okay, okay. "So okay then, Jesse, then so why does God allow so much suffering then"? First off, as we've established, as humans, we've all made choices that have caused suffering, yourself, someone you know, a stranger, a centuries old politician, we've all done it, but and this one is a tough one to swallow too, we're going deeper here, not all suffering is evil. Not all suffering is evil. Even some suffering that came from something evil, God is working to redeem all things by the end of the story including my mistakes, including yours, including you. So if you find yourself suffering, consider these next two ways that God can flip the script on your suffering.
ames one and Romans five talk about how suffering can shape your character and produce a lot of good things in you. Romans five says that suffering produces perseverance and perseverance, character, and character, hope. And this is all great, but in my opinion, this doesn't really make suffering much easier, but it does give me a goal in my suffering. It gives me something to hold onto and something that I can do. This pain can either build me up or it can cut me down. So ask yourself, how can I grow from this? It can build you up or it can cut you down. How can you grow from it? Next, sometimes God allows your suffering in order to grow your dependence on God.
What better way is there to learn that you really need God than to be in situations where you really, really need God? Ask anyone who's been following Jesus for a while and they'll probably tell you that they grew closest to God during seasons of suffering. Yeah, literally, you can go ask, I think you can pretty much ask anyone. That's when it happens. C.S. Lewis says, "Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains". And here it is, "It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world".
Yeah, pain is a pretty loud megaphone I'd say. So how are you supposed to deal with your suffering today? Well, always remember what Jesus did on the cross. You can always look there. You can always look there and know that He's good. Even when it feels like He isn't, you can look at the cross and know He's good. He's the only reliably good thing. And what's true in the light is still true in the dark. As a Jesus follower, all your pain is temporary. That's the promise of our life. Our life with Jesus after we die is that all pain is temporary.
Tolkien, the writer of "The Lord of the Rings," he wrote, "Everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost". Ooh, man, what a promise that God redeems all things. So grow closer to Jesus through your suffering and once you do, help someone else grow through theirs. That's all I got for you today. I know that was a super, super heavy one. If you found it helpful at all and someone came to mind who was like, oh, this person's going through suffering or this person's a bit of a cynic and this has been a struggle in their faith, send this to them.