God Is With Us
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. -- Romans 8:28
Where is God when bad things happen? Are bad things just part of His plan? Does He allow Satan to harm us like He did Job? Or are bad things just part of life, where humans make choices and stuff simply happens?
Let me say first that I don’t have all the answers or, even, really any of the answers. I have questions. Lots and lots of questions. And I have a God who is everything, beginning and ending with love. So how do His people cope with all those really bad things that happen in their lives?
First, I don’t believe God has preordained that horrible things will happen to us. I refuse to believe that God would plan child abuse, or rape or murder. It’s just not in His nature.
Second, I don’t think God sits on the sidelines of our lives and “allows” bad things to happen. Yes, He is all powerful. And, yes, He could intervene. Sometimes He does. More often, He doesn’t. Why is that?
God gave us the freedom to make some really bad decisions. Those decisions sometimes destroy the lives of other people, like when someone drives drunk and kills a family on their way home from church. Other times it’s not so easy to explain. Why does one person get cancer and another doesn’t? Why does one person die from a heart attack and another live to be 100?
Maybe the answer is just that bad things happen in this fallen world. There’s no specific reason, no grand plan, nobody to blame. Just incredible sadness. We look forward to heaven because there will be no more sorrow there.
So where is God in all that sadness? Walking right beside us, providing strength and comfort all along the way. He promises to never leave or forsake us. And He promises to turn bad things into good. It doesn’t mean God planned the bad things, just that He will use those bad things to draw us closer to Him.
I’ll probably never understand why horrible things happen to really good people. But I do know fully that God is with us no matter what happens on this journey called
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