Why Bad Things Happen to Good People

THIS WEEK is my graduation weekend! My family is visiting from Texas, and we’re staying for a few days in a fun apartment complex. We all went to church together this morning, where I and my mission team were commissioned on stage. We’re leaving this Saturday – less than a week from now. We’re all working hard to get ready to go.

Having my family in town for my graduation means a lot to me. My aunt and uncle have brought their little two-year old Elijah, who is a source of endless entertainment. I always feel like watching toddlers is a chance to see what we often look like to God. They are beautiful and precious, always learning new things and running to their parents for support. But they are often difficult too, and, like us, they don’t always know that what they want is not necessarily what they need.

A few days ago, for example, Eli has rejected his food at dinner and demanded snacks from his parents’ bag. We do that every time we think we know what is best, but God wants something better for us. But toddlers don’t understand. Yesterday, Eli was swimming with his parents in the pool and decided he wanted to be in the deep end instead. But they insisted that he couldn’t go there because he can’t swim. That is a lot like how we ask God for something that is not good for us, and don’t always understand when He says no.

We have that problem a lot. Just as toddlers don’t understand, we don’t understand either. We don’t know what God is doing. When He lets go of our bike, we don’t know it’s to teach us how to ride without training wheels. It takes a child’s faith in his parent to keep their young relationship healthy and the child safe.

Why can’t we have ice cream for breakfast? Why do bad things happen to good people? That’s what we ask God, expecting Him to be at a loss for words. When we suffer loss, is it the devil that takes it, or is it God? How do we understand the hard times? Why can’t it always be easy? We all want to know. Would you believe it? God actually has a good answer for all of this. There is a reason we can’t have ice cream for breakfast.

I read the first chapter of Job yesterday, asking God to talk to me through it, and He gave me an answer to these important questions.

Job was a godly man who had everything, and lost everything. His story is sad, but it has a happy ending. He was the wealthiest and most blessed man in the east. He had seven sons and three daughters, livestock and servants by the hundreds and food to spare. He made sacrifices regularly for his children just in case they had sinned against God. What happened to him was not to punish him. It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t perfect, but he honored God, and he didn’t commit some fatal sin that brought about his punishment.

One day the devil approached God and claimed that Job would turn against God if he were no longer safe and happy. God was so certain that satan was wrong that He accepted the challenge.

Job 1:12, “And the Lord said to satan, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’ So satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”

So the devil proceeds to cause disasters that leave Job deprived of life’s most precious blessings. In one day he loses his livestock, his servants, his camels, and his ten children. One servant after another brings the soul-rending news of a catastrophe. At a loss and left broken, Job speaks and proves God wiser than the devil.

v. 20-22, “[20] Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. [21] And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ [22] In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.”
When I read that, I prayed that when things get hard for me, I’ll do what Job did then. When the world was falling apart, Job didn’t claim that it wasn’t fair and God wasn’t just. Instead, he worshiped in the midst of his mourning. And he declared that everything he ever had always belonged to God, and was always His to take away. My favorite song is “Praise You in the Storm” by Casting Crowns, which at one point goes, “As the thunder rolls, I’ll raise my hands and praise the God who gives, and takes away.”

But wait a minute: Did God take it away? I thought God gave the devil permission to take it away. When Job’s kids were killed under their collapsed tent, whose doing was it? And why? I asked God that because I didn’t know whether to say that loss is caused by the devil, or by God. And as you might guess, there is a big difference.

God has helped me understand that although catastrophes are caused by the devil, the devil cannot cause us any loss without God’s permission. He had to go stand before God and get permission before he could touch Job’s belongings. But that doesn’t mean that God and the devil are working together! They hate each other and have opposing goals. God only said yes to prove a point: that Job’s devotion was not dependent on his circumstances. He would continue to revere God despite the catastrophe. Now, that isn’t the entire book of Job. It’s just the first chapter. Things get harder for him, and he does have a struggle with pride and faith. But in the end, Job dies happy again.

So, the devil takes things away in the sense that he causes calamities. Someone once described it by saying that satan has your face on a dartboard in his room for target practice. He hates our guts, because he knows we have amazing potential serving God. But God takes it away in the sense that He permits it. He doesn’t command it, but He permits it. Sometimes He wants to teach us. Sometimes He wants to test us or strengthen our faith. But He always wants to draw us closer to Him through it. Disasters can either destroy our faith or strengthen it. It just depends on whether we blame God or praise Him, because He remains the same and stands by us regardless or our circumstances.

What gets me the most is the fact that when God allowed satan to mess with Job’s life, He forbid him from touching Job himself. He said “Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” God is faithful to those who love Him. He wanted to let Job go through some things, but He would never throw His faithful child to the devil to chew up and destroy. I thank God that through all the hardest, stupidest messes we deal with in our lives, nothing can touch the children of God. I thank Him that He will never make us go through anything we cannot overcome. Because with God all things are possible, and no mountain is too big to move.

So if God says you can’t have ice cream for breakfast, don’t worry. And whatever you do, don’t scream and cry. Daddy is cooking up something better for His child.