It was a rainy afternoon in Cambodia as I sat across from my friend, Navi, who recently left her Buddhist faith to discover Jesus and follow Him instead. I stared at the raindrops dripping onto her Khmer Bible, opened to John chapter 1.
“I don’t understand why some people are sad even when they know Jesus. Why do bad things happen?” she questioned with a puzzled look on her face.
It’s like a riddle that can’t be solved. It’s like a mismatched rubrics cube. It’s like a puzzle with a missing piece. The question we all wonder, why do bad things happen to good people?
And the reason why we don’t get it? Because at some point in life, we were fed the prosperity gospel and gobbled it up. We like it. We like happy. We like success. We like prosperity.
But that’s not the Gospel we read about. Jesus never said it was easy. He never said it was pain-free. And to give us a perfect example, He lived out the greatest suffering imaginable to remind us, that this isn’t a joke. This is no game. This is no puzzle. But rather this is life, and life abundantly.
To be honest, I can’t answer Navi’s question. She cringed as I told her the story of my friend DJ who passed away a decade ago. I told her how hard it was to trust God after something so terrible happened in my life and in our family’s life. But I also told her how God grabbed ahold of my heart and has been pursuing me and drenching me in His goodness, kindness and mercy ever since. His goodness never changed, even when it felt like it did.
That’s how God works. Life is hard and He knows it. He used Jesus to warn us about it “…but take heart I have overcome the world…” (John 16:33). But yet despite the tragedies, despite the violence, despite the hate, He keeps whispering over and over and over “I’m always here, I’ve never left, and I never will.”
That’s what He whispered to me, anyway.
We have to have a deep-rooted faith that trusts Him, even when circumstances seem otherwise, we have to believe that He is good and He is faithful.
When we flip the lights on, we discover that He never gave us a riddle to crack. He never gave us a rubrics cube to solve. He didn’t give us pieces to a puzzle. It’s like we discover that He was the puzzle all along, fit perfectly together, not needing to be solved. He’s already finished with no missing pieces, simply waiting to be captivated and delighted in.
After reading John 1, Navi and I came to conclusion that even when times are tough, even when things seem out of control, He’s still good. He is kind. He is loving. And He is most deserving to be delighted in. We decided that we will trust God’s promise when He says,
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
John 1:5
