Why do bad things happen to good People?

(This is a response to a question a friend of mine sent me that his 5 year old asked... Why do people die?)

We have all had bad things happen and when they do we all moan and ask why.


If we don’t include God into the equation and we want to explain why bad things happen it is because of sheer numbers… If you have 7,000,000,000,000 people in the world they are all bound to have something happen to them. Some of the things that happen are good and some are bad. The majority are good that is why the number of people in the world keeps going up. Even though those people may experience bad things most is still good and we are getting better at making more things good. Stuff like helmets, doctors, and laws that protect us… I don’t buy it. I have had too many things happen to me to say that there is no God. Also using this argument doesn’t give a child hope… they have to wonder when their number will come up.

This is for some background but I will have a shorter answer for your daughter at the end. We aren’t really good. That is reality, it stinks but we are all trouble and God knows it. Romans 3:23 says” we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”… Jesus Himself says in Matthew 19:17 that “no one is good but God” this is dealt with in the book of Job (“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised” Job 1:21). That stuff is hard to tell a kid and it is hard to really swallow myself, but the reality is that there are a bunch of people in the world and if only good happened to them all we would all be spoiled brats that think we are entitled to whatever we get or take. God has put calamities in our world to help us appreciate the good that we do have.

So the real question is why do bad things happen to bad people (but don’t say that to the kids)?

I Corinthians 10:13 says that God doesn’t allow us to suffer something we can’t escape… (Scott’s translation, actual Greek is longer). Romans 8:28 says that “All things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to HIS Purpose” (not ours). When we get sick our bodies will get stronger like when we get chicken pox and never have them again. Or we fall and break a leg we may hurt terribly but God may have a plan come out of it, that will help someone in the future. Like a better way to help a leg heal. Those things make a bad thing good.

Also death seems bad to us but actually it is better than life if you know Jesus. Heaven is going to be AWESOME! Imagine if you are Lazarus, you are friends with Jesus but you live in a first century city that has no running water, no heat or air, no cars, no jeeps, no email, no Wal-Mart, no nothing but dirt, camels and goats. Jesus can’t get to you so you pass away and go to heaven and find the cleanest, brightest, coolest place in creation, literally. You get to see God’s throne room and hear the seraphim sing. and then you hear “Lazarus, come forth.” I know it is Jesus he is coming out to but you have to think he kind of felt like the squirrel on ice age that wakes up from heaven to find a sloth licking his face… not that Jesus wasn’t a sight for sore eyes ( and forgive me Jesus if that is offensive) but that he had come back to the dirty earth, from a perfect heaven and the presence of God, had to be a bummer.

When we got ourselves kicked out of the Garden of Eden we were told we were going to have to toil… if bad things didn’t happen how would the construction workers toil? Disaster is good for the economy. How would the doctors toil if people didn’t get hurt or sick, how would the factories that make cars keep their jobs if some people didn’t have wrecks? And now because of those wrecks we have better cars that protect us. It is hard to understand but all things work together for good. It is a hard question but when it comes down to it we are all meant to die just as we are meant to be born so we must prepare for death just like we prepare for life… we work hard and go to school so we can have a better life… isn’t it time to start preparing for death? Life decisions make us stronger.

Jamie, while all this seems long winded and boring I could go on and on and on. We are given a little micro-environment to show God that we are capable to raise a family and be successful. If we do good God blesses us with a family of love and contentment. If we do a poor job and seek our own agenda and that agenda isn’t good for the family God allows us to live in pain and selfishness (the pattern we chose). I am sure you see these two lifestyles at school… God doesn’t do it to us; we do it to our families on our own.

My advice to you is for you to love your family, love your neighbor and show your kids how to love God. Even if it is all wrong and when we die it is all over a life of love can never be bad.

So I said I would give you and easy answer for your daughter…

When we have a bad attitude and act mean to our family and we have a bad ol’ punishment happen to us, it will teach us that we need to have better attitudes so we can be successful. That could make our lives better because we would have learned to work better in society?

So the ground breaking answer to the age old question is that we get stronger from the bad thing, we learn to keep fighting and it makes us appreciate the good stuff.

Why do people have to die… so babies can be born… that will put them off till they are old enough to discuss real issues. I have used the real issues all my girls’ lives so they understand now. It is up to you whether or not you use the real argument or the easy one.

I would never take the rough stuff away from our family… I call it the spice of life. Some spices are sweet some are bitter it takes all kinds to make us rounded people that are tough enough to fight the good fight.