Common Question: “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”

“Why do bad things happen to good, sometimes, Christian people?”

The answer to this question, as with most hard questions, is simple, but hard to hear or embrace.  Perhaps that is why these common questions keep being asked.  I think there are two answers to this question:

a) I have already answered the question of “good-ness” in people, and we found that no one is “good” at all.  That truth has a huge implication that sheds lots of light on our current question.  Because no one is good, nothing bad ever happens to any “good” people.  Bad things only happen to bad people.  BUT before I stop there I have to say this.  There was indeed one good Person in the whole of history according to the Bible, His name is Jesus Christ.  Therefore, the only bad thing that has ever happened to a good Person, was the cross.  Jesus was good, and received something more awful than we can imagine so that we would be “brought to God” (1 Pet. 3:18), glorifying Him for His mercy (Romans 15:8-9).

b) The second thing I should add in answering this question is that God may indeed ordain awful things to happen to many people we know.  How should we look on those things?  That depends.  If those suffering people are not Christians, we should conclude that God is bringing about certain events to get their attention, and we should encourage them to repent and trust in Jesus, because only in Jesus can we have life and purpose, and only in Jesus do things in life begin to make sense.  If those suffering people are Christians, we should conclude that God is pruning (John 15:1-8).  Pruning is painful, but God only prunes to bring more fruit out of the believer’s life.  God only causes affliction to come on His children in faithfulness (Psalm 119:75).  Therefore we should encourage these people not to rejoice in the awful circumstances themselves, but to rejoice in God’s purposes and designs in the awful circumstances for growth.  This kind of trust in God, honors God, because it recognizes that all things come from God (Eph. 1:11b).  Job rejoiced in times like these, and we should labor to do the same (Job 1:20-22, James 1:2-4).