Where is God When Bad Things Happen?
We live in a world filled with tragedy, hardship, and horrors of every sort. And when considering the role of God in the midst of these circumstances, two questions immediately come to mind.
How could a loving God allow bad things to happen?
If He does allow bad things, can I feel safe?
As we start to interact with the first of these questions, we realize that both parts of it are true and not mutually exclusive. God is loving and does allow bad things to happen. But that is not the same as saying that He causes them to happen.
Because God is loving and created us for the purpose of having a loving relationship with Him, He had to allow for the possibility that we might reject Him and His righteousness to choose selfishness and evil instead. If there was no real choice, than a legitimate, mutually loving relationship with us could not exist.
That’s why He placed the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. He commanded Adam not to partake of its fruit and warned him of the terminal consequences for doing so. But although God’s desire for us was to know only good, His love prohibited Him from either eliminating the option or preventing us from choosing to know good and evil.
The responsibility for the horrors evil has inflicted on the world rest squarely with each of us as Adam’s sons and daughters, not with God. We are the ones who wanted to know evil. We got what we wanted.
Nevertheless, God is merciful. And in His mercy, He steps in to protect us from the full impact of evil in the world. But God is also just, as well as merciful, and justice demands that the consequences of our race’s rebellion against Him be faced.
When bad things happen, people question God’s love and ask how He could possibly allow such horror. However, the correct response should not be anger that God has allowed us to experience a small portion of the fallout of our sin, but gratitude that He mercifully protects us from its full impact.
The second question has to do with whether or not we can ever really count on God’s protection given what we’ve just discussed. In other words, if humanity is responsible for setting evil loose in the world and there are times that God’s justice demands that the consequences for that be faced, doesn’t that mean that we are always personally in jeopardy of exposure to evil’s horrors.
The correct answer to this line of questioning is an emphatic, NO! Although the Bible doesn’t guarantee that Christians will not be touched by tragedy, it is absolutely clear that those of us who have become children of God by receiving the forgiveness He offers through Christ are never victims. Instead, He causes us to become victors.
Ultimately, all of our worries and fears come down to one – fear of death. However, Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
It’s not that every bad thing we encounter causes us to be afraid we will lose our lives, but rather that life as we’ve known it may come to an end. And the above passage tells us that there are people who have spent their lives captured by this fear. However, it also proclaims that Jesus faced this fear on our behalf and defeated both it and the one who seeks to imprison us with it.
Christ’s victory on the cross, has purchased our eternal life and we no longer have anything to fear. 1 Corinthians 15:55 says: “O death, where is your sting?”
Some consider this just a cop-out on God’s part as if He were saying, “Yes, you might experience some type of severe personal tragedy, but don’t worry, in the end you’ll go to heaven.” However, the reality of our Savior’s triumph over the power of death is not a cop-out. It is a powerfully securing truth. God has freed us from fear and has wrapped us tightly in the security of eternal life.
The Scriptures boldly proclaim that nothing can separate us from his loving care. In Romans 8:35 we read: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”
How do the bad things in this passage relate to us?
- Tribulation: Pressure, demands, cares, concerns
John 16:33 - These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. - Distress: Backed into a corner, without options
Isaiah 51:10 - Are You not the One who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over? - Persecution: Suffering for Christ
Matthew 5:11-12 - Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. - Famine: Any material insufficiency
Philippians 4:19 - And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. - Nakedness: Exposure
Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Peril: Danger, jeopardy, tragedy
Psalm 4:8 - I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. - Sword: War, terrorism, social & geopolitical forces
Psalm 20:7-8 - Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God. They have bowed down and fallen; but we have risen and stand upright.
Since nothing can separate us from His love, we can face anything life throws at us and not be shaken. There isn't any verse of scripture that sums this up better than Romans 8:37 which declares, “…In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
I encourage you to read Psalm 91:1-16 right now and let the comfort of God wash over your soul.