I just have trouble understanding why bad things happen if God loves everyone so much. A lot has happened to me recently that’s broken me and I don’t understand why he’s letting this happen. I’m not perfect, but I’m not a bad person. It’s getting unbearable.
Well, first off, there isn't anyone who is really "good." Not by God's standard, anyway. Compared to His perfect holiness and righteous purity, we are all vile, wicked monsters. And it's to Himself God always compares us, not to one another. So, it's never that God is obliged by our goodness to treat us well. From God's viewpoint, if He gave us what we all deserved, we'd all be in hell. Instead, He's shown us incredible mercy, grace and love, offering to us salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. (
John 3:16; Matthew 22:28-30; Revelation 3:20; Romans 10:9-10)
Why do evil things happen to good people? Because God has given us the freedom to choose between loving Him and loving ourselves, between moral right and wrong, between wisdom and foolishness, between the Truth and the lies we so love to tell ourselves. When we choose ourselves, morally wrong things, foolishness and lies (all of these things go together), we produce sin and sin
always produces corruption and death of some kind (
Romans 6:23; Galatians 6:7-8; James 1:14-15, Romans 8:6, etc.). The "ripples" of our sinfulness always also move outward from us affecting others, causing harms of all kinds to them, depending upon the kind of sin in which we indulge.
God must allow this to go on if we are to be truly free to choose, which is vital to loving Him. Love can't be compelled; it must be freely given. But this requires, unavoidably, that we be free to choose to love something else other than God. And when we choose some other love and not God, we sin and poison our world with its corruption and death. If there are many
billions of people all doing this every day (which there is), is it any wonder our world is so full of evil, and death and darkness?
But what happens here, now, in this sin-corrupted world is not the whole story. There's an eternity yet to come, an everlasting kingdom of God for which all of His children are destined, free of sin, death, and darkness. We weren't made just for now, for the eye-blink of time we exist here, but for an unending life with God in the new heavens and earth God will make in which righteousness - and only righteousness - dwells. We'd have cause to be truly despairing and unhappy with God if this life is all there is, but the seventy or eighty years of time we're on this globe is next to nothing in the endless, glorious life with God yet to come. Only when we think this is it, that our life on earth is the Big Show, does the evil we must endure in a sin-cursed world become a crushing cause of despair. For this reason, God calls all of His children in His word to fix their eyes on their future eternal hope and glory:
Romans 8:16-21
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
Philippians 3:20-21
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.
Colossians 3:1-4
1 Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.
2 Peter 3:10-13
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
Revelation 21:23-27
23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed;
26 and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;
27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.
Revelation 22:1-5
1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb,
2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him;
4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.
5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illumine them; and they will reign forever and ever.
God has not left His own to wait in despairing agony until He takes them from this sin-fouled earth to be with Him. No, He has given to each of His children Himself in the Person of the Holy Spirit in whom they can find all they need to be at rest and joyful in the midst of the inevitable difficulties of life. The Holy Spirit will fill all in whom he dwells with his love, joy, peace, strength, and light as they walk in humble, loving faith and submission to His will and way. No child of God, then,
has to labor 'til death under a cloud of despair, sorrow and fear.
Matthew 11:28-30
28 "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.
30 "For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
Ephesians 5:9
9 (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth),
Galatians 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Philippians 3:7-8
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
