One of the most asked questions is why does God let bad things happen to the world and his children that He loves? Honestly, its a very good question and even most Christians ask this at some point in their lives and sometimes it even drives them away from God. The most simple answer to this question is that God allows us to have free will, and naturally being sinners means that bad things are going to happen. However, some people do not like that, since God is so good, He shouldn’t let bad things happen like illnesses, meaningless deaths, massacres, natural disasters, etc… I am actually writing this after being in the hospital for 5 days with Malaria and a viral infection. I am now recovering and feeling a lot better, but I am not going to lie I felt miserable and it easily could have progressed into something a lot worse. My highest fever was over 104 degrees, I think that’s the highest I have ever had and at 107 the brain starts to melt. April was staying with me for part of the time and the nurses and doctors loved us because we couldn’t speak French, but we were always laughing and had huge smiles on our faces. You may be like the nurse and ask me why I had a smile on my face and laughed when they told me I had malaria and he said malaria is really bad. April, who just wrote a blog about Joy, you should totally go read it here is a link is always laughing and joyful about anything good or bad. Honestly, there is nothing too bad that God can’t fix, so whats the point of stressing.
Now back to the original question, God doesn’t let bad things happen. They happen because we are sinners and we are able to make our own decisions. If God didn’t let us have free will everything would be perfect and people would probably complain about that somehow. Now when you are a Christian and bad things happen, you look at it through a different lens. Bad things happen, but then God gets to make those bad things into something good in a way only God could think of. That is why it is so hard for us to see past the heartbreak and the hurt because we can’t see the pieces He is putting together to restore us. Be grateful for the times you get to mourn because Jesus will be right there with you and provide you joy through it. Be thankful for the times you are sad because Jesus gets to share His happiness with you. Be delighted when life gets hard and you have hit rock bottom because Jesus gets to pick you up and put you back together to be more like him. The devil loves when we are living good and comfortable because then we feel like we do not need God and we do everything ourselves. I think instead of looking at it as good and bad, we should look at it as thankful and unthankful. This is a choice of how we can look at every circumstance and knowing how good God is hopefully get to a place where we can be thankful for everything. You know how you see those people who even when something really bad is happening to them they are just so thankful and joyful still. Thats the kind of peace God promises us through everything because He never leaves us, He never says bad things won’t happen. We just know when bad things do happen, God gets to make them into something great and that’s the greatest gift ever.
