Morning Devotional
July 5, 2004
"Bad Things and Good People (Part 1)"
by Don Emmitte

If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him. (Matthew 7:11 NLT).

 

The story of Job is widely known, though many people still miss the message within it. Job was a fortunate and faithful man. Satan charges that Job is faithful only because he is fortunate. To prove a point, God lets Satan take away all that Job has, including his children, and to cover his body with boils. Three friends come to visit Job, and their conversations are the bulk of the book. Job complains that his suffering is an injustice from God. His friends defend the idea that God is just with a variety of arguments, including that Job must have done something to deserve his suffering. Job declares his innocence. Ultimately God reproves Job’s friends and restores all of Job’s losses. The message answers the question of why bad things happen to good people?

 

It is typically believed, at least at one level, that bad things happen to people (especially others) because God is a righteous judge who gives them what they deserve. We have been conditioned to live orderly, logical lives. Consequently we must have an answer that makes sense and protects the concept that God must be primarily responsible for everything that happens to us. You may have heard one of the following reasons offered for the bad things that happen to good people:

 

  • Someone made a mistake, or failed in the observance of some religious duty.
  • God has a hidden purpose, or is making use of knowledge we don't have.
  • Suffering itself will turn out to be good for us.
  • God's purpose is in the grand design of the Universe (which is good and beautiful), not in the life of the individual.
  • Suffering teaches something, either to us or to those who see us suffer.
  • Suffering is a test.
  • Death leads us and our loved ones to a better place.

 

Harold Kushner rejects all of these explanations: "All the responses to tragedy which we have considered have at least one thing in common. They all assume that God is the cause of our suffering, and they try to understand why God would want us to suffer. … There may be another approach. Maybe God does not cause our suffering. Maybe it happens for some reason other than the will of God."

 

In the next few days I want to explore this with you in our Morning Devotionals. The simple truth is that God does not intend harm to come to his children. Bad things DO happen to us, but our first response should not be to look toward God as the cause. Nor should we look to ourselves as the cause. There is an evil operating in our world that delights in suffering and destruction.