Good and Bad Things

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? Those are a couple of tough questions for most theologians I'd imagine. As Christians, we believe in a completely good, infinite, omnipresent and all-powerful God. As humans, we are decidedly limited and decidedly without power and we are also unable to fully understand His ways, which are, the Bible tells us, not our ways.

Job was a decent man who loved God and had to live through some horrendous things. God permitted Satan to do everything he wanted to do to Job, with the exception of killing him. Ultimately, because he loved God, two of his reactions are two of my favorite sentences in the Bible. Job 1:21, "The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised." and Job 13:15, "Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him:"

I think a reading of the text shows that Job didn't understand why God allowed the terrible things that happened to him to happen, but he very well knew that God was good and so he clung to Him, which should always be our reaction too. God is good and full of mercy and grace. We need to remember that when hard things happen to us and we can't understand why. We need to remember the following: "Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6

The same thing applies when dealing with why good things happen to "bad" people. God remains good, and we don't have any different understanding than we did before. In Romans 3:10-18 Paul quotes from several Old Testament sources which show us how God views humanity. It is a telling passage. I know there are historical circumstances and specifics involved in the context of the passage, but it is hard to ignore what Paul is leading up to later in the chapter; "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23.

That's pretty clear. To be very blunt, nobody on the planet hits the mark when it comes to living without sin, and only a sinless life will gain one entry into Heaven. Every moment of life that we have on the earth is only by the grace of a loving God, and even the most miserable existence we might have is merciful when compared to what we should have coming as a just payment for our sins. Mercifully, "God demonstrates His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

The world is full of evil. Children are abused, molested and murdered every day and despite the wickedness, the sinfully disdainful way mankind treats God, He still loves us. He loved us enough to die for our sins. I said the other day, Jesus went through some hard things for us, hard beatings, hard wood, hard nails. He took what we deserved, and there are many walking this planet who are deceived into thinking that what he got is not what they deserve. "That's too harsh. Everybody sins. I don't deserve that."

I guess I don't get angry when I hear others expressing outrage at the "good fortune" of corrupt individuals, because on some level we're all corrupt and mercifully, I love Jesus and He loves us all. Those people who reject Him in this life have only the "good fortune" of this life to look back on. They certainly will have nothing to look forward too, which is why I don't want justice. I want mercy, because if I got justice, I wouldn't have anything to look forward to either.