Morning Devotional

July 8, 2004

"Bad Things and Good People (Part 4)"

by Don Emmitte

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And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on the ground. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. All your life you will sweat to produce food, until your dying day. Then you will return to the ground from which you came. For you were made from dust, and to the dust you will return." Then Adam named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all people everywhere. And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife. Then the LORD God said, "The people have become as we are, knowing everything, both good and evil.” (Genesis 3:17-22 NLT).

Our reading this morning is a very familiar story for most of us. It is the conclusion of the fall of man through his choice of disobedience. However, it is more than a simple case of disobeying God and being punished for it. I think the story is about the differences between being human and being an animal. And the key to understanding it is the fact that the 'forbidden' tree is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

When Adam and Eve choose to eat from this tree, they became human as we define humanity today. The immortality they enjoyed was forfeited. The freedom from pain and death was removed. They entered the world of the knowledge of good and evil, a more painful, more complicated world, where they would have to make difficult moral choices. After all, this is what it means to be human “in the image of God.” It means being free to make choices instead of doing whatever our instincts would tell us to do. It means knowing that some choices are good, and others are bad, and it is our job to know the difference. Tragically, it is far easier to choose the bad than the good.

With this in mind, we come to one of our original questions: Why do bad things happen to good people? One of the reasons is that our being human leaves us free to hurt each other, and God has can’t stop us without taking away the freedom that makes us human. Human beings can cheat each other, rob each other, and hurt each other in more ways than imaginable. God does care. He sees this state of the world and responds with pity and compassion. When Jesus overlooked Jerusalem, he saw the people as if they were a scattered flock of sheep. He wept at the sight and remarked how God would gather them under his protection, but they would not respond to his call. 

Once again, the key is in our response. When bad things happen, we are often tempted to ask why? The first response is often wrong. Our question leads us to blame God, or worse ourselves. More often the blame rests in the evil working within the world and others who have chosen to hurt rather than help. The better response is to turn toward the protection of the covering of God. There you will find safety and protection. There is a day coming when we won’t be hurt by the evil choices of others. However, until then, when bad things happen, turn your attention to God.