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A question that is often asked is, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I believe we often ask that question because we aren't willing to recognize that we are sinful and that we live in a sin-cursed, sin-stained, fallen world. In spite of that, we still believe that it is inconceivable that something bad could happen to us, after all, we are good people. Even among Christians there are books that address this issue. Books like "Why is it that bad things happen to good people" or "Where is God in the midst of my trouble". One would almost think the answer to this question is obscure. Bad things do happen to good people. In fact, God allows bad things to happen to his people. The question is why. Why does God allow bad things to happen to His people? Let me give you a list of reasons.
First, God allows bad things to happen to His people to test the validity of their faith. One reason is to determine if our faith is a lasting faith, an indestructible faith. Because if it is not indestructible, it is not saving faith. Saving faith endures, saving faith perseveres. In II Chronicles 32:31 Hezekiah was being tested and it says, "God left him to test him that he might know all that was in his heart." Job was tested beyond our imagination. All his children were killed, lost all his wealth, and was smitten with a serious and perhaps fatal disease. In the middle of the test his wife told him to curse God and die. What did Job respond, "Though He slay me, yet I will trust him." There is a principle in God's word that says the just shall live by faith. If everything in the world goes in the reverse direction, if everything goes according to what you can't understand or comprehend, if everything seems unreasonable and abnormal, our response should be, yet will I trust in the Lord. But why would God want to test our faith? Not for his sake but for our sake. Don't you want to know your faith is a saving faith? God is testing you to give you the gift of security. If you pass the test, you have an objective affirmation that you are truly saved. He is assuring you that your faith will never die because true faith cannot die, no matter how severe the trial may be.
Second, God allows bad things to happen to his people to wean them from the world. He does so to help us break our attachments to the world. We tend to trust in worldly things, don't we? To trust in worldly resources like human reasoning and money and power and prestige and influence and friendships. So the Lord brings us trials that we might be weaned away from confidence in worldly things. In Jn. 6, Jesus put Phillip through a test. He asked Phillip where they could buy bread to feed a crowd of over 5,000 people. Phillip responded with a worldly inventory. He said we have about 200 denarii but that isn't enough to feed this crowd.
Phillip had the opportunity to say, Lord you are the God of creation, if you want to feed them, feed them. So the Lord brings us into extreme situations where we don't have any capacity in ourselves, where there aren't any human resources, where there is nowhere to turn but to Him, so that we might be weaned away from our confidence in worldly things.
Third, God allows bad things to happen to good people to call them to heavenly hope. The purpose of His trials is to fill our hearts with anticipation for the glories to come so that we can live in hope. Romans 5:3 says, "Tribulation brings perseverance, perseverance brings proven character, proven character brings hope and hope never disappoints." You want to never be disappointed in life? Then live in the hope of heaven. The way to never be disappointed is to make sure that your preoccupation is in the life to come. The sufferings of this world are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be ours in heaven. You may be beaten down in this life but you are accumulating an eternal reward in the life to come. So live in the light of heaven.
Fourth, the Lord allows bad things to happen to His people to show us what we really love. Trials will reveal to you what is most precious to you. If money is most precious and the stock market goes down or a depression hits you are going to be in despair. You lose your job and can't make the mortgage payments, you’ll be in despair. You won't be able to say Lord you must have something wonderful in store for me because you will use this to shape my character after the image of Christ. It is kind of like Abraham who loved Isaac like any father loves his son. Think of how long he waited to have that son whom God promised to establish a covenant with and to bless the whole world. Yet, when God said put him on an altar and plunge a knife in him he was obedient. So God provided another sacrifice in place of Isaac. If you want God to mold you into the image of Christ you will accept what God brings into your life as that which fulfills God's purpose to glorify Christ through those trials.
Fifth, trials allow God to teach us obedience. God allows trials to test the strength of our faith, to wean us from worldly things, to call us to a heavenly hope, to help us see what we really love, and also to chasten us because we are sinful. Through those trials we learn that sin has painful consequences. Hebrews 12, "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are reproved by him, for those he loves He disciplines and he scourges every son whom he receives." Why does he do that? The next verse says "that we may share his holiness." He does it Hebrews 12:11 says to produce the peaceful fruit of righteousness. He is trying to discipline the sin out of us. He is trying to teach us that sin has consequences. He is trying to show us the value of obedience.
Sixth, God allows bad things to happen to his people in order that he might reveal his compassion and mercy. It is God's desire that we understand who he is, that we know his nature, and that we see his nature revealed to us. If God is a God of compassion, a God of mercy, a God of grace, a God of pity, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort then v.3 of II Cor. 1 says he needs an opportunity to demonstrate that. Psalm 63:3 says "because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee." What does that mean? The psalmist is saying better than anything I have ever experienced in all my life is to experience God's loving kindness, which means I have to go through pain or I will never experience that. God is never more intimately known to us than when he comes to us in the midst of our pain, is he? The greatest times of earthly trouble have always been the times of my purest intimacy with God.
Seventh, God allows bad things to happen to His people to develop their spiritual strength for greater usefulness. The more you are tested and refined by trials and trouble, the more useful you become. James 1:2 says, "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, why, because the testing of your faith produces endurance and let endurance have its perfect result." What is the result? "That you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing." Wow! The Lord is going to use the trial you are going through to make you the strongest, formidable Christian you can be. Greater usefulness comes through the path of suffering.
Eighth, The Lord allows bad things to happen to his people to enable them to help others in their trials. One of the reasons that I have difficulty is so God can come to me in my difficulty and strengthen me and then I can come to you with the strength he's given to me. Isn't that what Paul said in v.4-6 of II Corinthians 1 ? Listen to it. "Who comforts us in all our afflictions so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God." In Luke 22:31 Jesus said to Peter, "After you have turned around from this trial, strengthen the brethren."
Ninth, God allows his people to experience trials and trouble in order to display his astounding power. In II Cor. 1:8 Paul said he had been burdened excessively beyond his strength. This must have been the worst life-threatening experience Paul ever had. We don't know what it was but it must have been bad. It was so bad he could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was so bad there was no foreseeable escape. The NAS says he was unbearably crushed to the point of depression. He saw no way to survive it. It says he despaired of his life; there was no passage out of it. No escape hatch. He was done mentally and overwhelmed physically. Have you ever dealt with a problem so long that you become physically and emotionally exhausted? Why would God put us through that kind of horrible extremity? In order that we should not trust in ourselves. God at times takes us to a place where there is no escape, where we have no human resource to call upon. Takes us to a place where we have no power to fix it. All we can do is trust in the God who raises the dead. That is the point where God's power intervenes. That progressive weakening, whether it is due to physical illness, financial disaster, being forsaken and left alone, whatever shatters your confidence in your own abilities, that is God's opportunity to show his power.
A workman was employed on a building project, one of those high rise buildings. Due to delays he had to work at night to catch up. While on the edge of the wall he slipped, lost his balance, fell over the edge and grabbed the edge of the wall with both hands and hung on desperately. He began to scream and cry out for someone to rescue him. It was pitch black, riveting machines were going, metal hammers were beating and pounding, mechanical motors were running, so no one could hear him. Gradually his arms grew numb as hung suspended over the street below and his fingers began to slip. After every effort to hold on, he fell - about three inches to a scaffold that had been there all the time that darkness had prevented him from seeing. All through that anxiety, he was completely safe. We are so often terrified by our predicaments while all the time there is a scaffold of God's care beneath us. Ignorance will not change the circumstance but it will destroy the peace, doesn't it?
V.10 of II Cor. 1 says he has delivered us and he will deliver us again. He did it in the past and he will do it in the future. God is always faithful, is he not? The psalmist said it over and over again; my hope is in the Lord. God says I will be there to comfort you and strengthen you right to the end. Then he adds in v.11 "You can help us by your prayers. Thank God for those that pray for you in the midst of trials. Intercessory is critical to the expression of God's great power. In prayer, human impotence casts itself at the feet of divine omnipotence. When we pray we are not trying to change God's plan, we are just trying to get in line with it so that we can give thanks when God's power is activated. Many prayers bring many thanks. Can anything be more wonderful than to realize that God is a God of tender mercy and a God of all comfort who comforts us in all our afflictions? Who comforts us so we can comfort others. Thank God for bringing along our side mutual sufferers who can share the same comfort and the same strength no matter how severe the trial may be. I thank God for those people I called and shared with and who responded with prayer. I called you because I know you have suffered similar trials. No matter how bad it gets, the God who raises the dead can step in and he will until the day he takes us to glory. Remember these words from the great hymn: Be still, my soul/ the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. Leave to thy God to order and provide. In every change he faithful will remain. Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly friend/ though thorny ways leads to a joyful end. Be still, my soul, thy God doeth undertake/ to guide the future as he has the past/ Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake/ all now mysterious shall be bright at last. Be still, my soul; the waves and wind still know/ His voice who ruled them while he dwelt below. Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on/ when we shall be forever with the Lord. When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone. Sorrows forgotten, loves purest joys restored. Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past, all safe and blessed we shall meet at last.
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The Rev. Dr. James Barnes is currently the pastor of White Memorial Church in Milroy.