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WHY Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? 

On Sunday, November 5, 2017, as the devastating details of the shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs began to emerge, this thought ran through my mind – “why do bad things happen to good people?”  We have all heard this statement before.  The word WHY is a word that is being used more and more.  For many years, we have been told that we are wrong to ask God “why?” I have asked myself the question, “Why am I wrong to ask God why?”  I began studying on this thought and began reading my Bible to see what I could find out.  The word “why” is mentioned 282 times in the Bible in 261 different verses.  “Why” is mentioned in 13 verses in the book of Job. When God spoke of Job, he said, “There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” (Job 1:1) If Job was “perfect and upright…feared God…eschewed evil”, and we use him as an example of the way we should act when adversity hits our lives, then why is it wrong to ask “why”?  

 I also think about a man named Jesus.  According to the scriptures, this man lived a perfect life and never sinned the first time.  When Jesus was dying on the cross for the sin of mankind, he said seven different things. One of those sayings was, “My God, my God, WHY hast thou forsaken me?”  Here we see Jesus, the Son of God, asking “WHY.”  The conclusion that I have come to is simply this – we are wrong to get mad at God and bitter toward God when bad things happen to good people, BUT if we simply want to have a conversation with God, there is nothing wrong with that.  God created man in Genesis for the purpose of fellowship and God still seeks that fellowship with us today. To explain why bad things happen to good people, the only thing I can come up with is the scripture in Isaiah 55, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9)God has a plan for everything He does. I may not understand it right now, but I must trust in Him and remember that He makes no mistakes.  “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

 I pray that everyone has a great day!