Why do bad things happen?

We often wonder why bad things seem to happen to good people, and how God, being a loving God, can permit such tragedies to occur. Well, if we study the Bible, which is the base line for our faith, without our believing in it first, we have no basis for having faith in God. If we are believers, we know  that sin is the source of our experiencing terrible things happening to us. It is mankind's fault, the "wages of sin," and not Gods fault that we suffer tragedy, poor health, calamity, strife, fighting, envy, covetousness, physical death, etc...and, spiritual death as well if we are not believers in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, and recognize him as our redeemer from sin.

Sometimes, things we see as tragedy is God's way of drawing believers closer to him. Sometimes, tragedy is a judgement against us, a punishment intended to cause us to repent, or to draw unbelievers to repent and seek Him. But, if we are truly committed believers, we should know that we will benefit from God's Will for us. The Bible says that God has our best interests at heart, and that everything he does, or permits to happen to us, is for the ultimate "Good."  

In my own case, with respect to enduring cancer, it has drawn me much closer to God, and these challenges have benefited me in ways that sometimes aren't easy to understand, especially as to why they ever occurred in the first place. But, like anyone else, I initially saw, and still sometimes see these challenges as a very dark cloud. But, eventually, as I'm drawn closer to God day by day, as I try to approach spiritual maturity, I see these challenges as a cloud that has a silver lining, one that blesses me greatly in other respects, even while I'm in the midst of suffering.

If you consider that God is omniscient, he has an awareness and foreknowledge that we just don't have.  The following analogy has crossed my mind for quite some time. I don't know if it was inspired by God for me to come to this realization, but I like to think so. That would be pretty cool if God put this analogy in my head, but who knows. Here it is...

When little children fall down and skin their knees, to them it seems like the end of the World, with all the drama and emotion that accompanies a child falling down and skinning its knees. Its understandable, it hurts, it may be bleeding, lots of crying, etc...to them it's very scary, and a very emotionally charged experience...the "End of the World!"

But, we as mature adults know that we'll just spray a little antibiotic on the wound, put a Band-Aid on it, and in a few days, the skinned knee will have healed, and the child will have almost all but forgotten the emotional distress that they had experienced in the moment. As mature adults, we know that a skinned knee is really no big deal. 

In the same way, I think God sees our trials and tribulations as "No Big Deal," because he knows the eventual outcome will benefit us as believers, as an improvement in what we otherwise might perceive as terrible tragedy in the moment. He knows that our going through terrible tragedy will glorify Him as he prepares us for our spiritual assignments, serving Him here on earth, and also once we pass into His presence upon physical death. 

We, as mature adults, know that the little child's emotional and psychological pain and suffering will soon pass, and that everything will eventually be ok. This reminds me that God knows these tragedies in life before they even occur, that what we endure will soon pass, and that as we pass from physical existence to a spiritual existence, the traumatic experiences we endured during our physical existence is preparing us for our spiritual life with Him.

God knows that our painful human emotional and psychological tragedies, especially with respect to the death of a loved one, will soon pass in the big scheme of things. We will ultimately, as believers, be in the presence of God the Father, and Jesus Christ, a far better place to be. As a result of our trials and tribulations, we may also be eligible for the best of spiritual gifts, and that our suffering, if also bringing Glory to God, may just result in unimaginably great spiritual gifts once we pass on.

The tears that go with these emotional and psychological experiences on earth are certainly difficult to bear in the moment. But, they will be washed away, and perhaps not even something we will even remember enduring once we are in God's presence. Then, He promises we will gain a complete understanding, and that we will see the merit of God's wisdom. 

Much like the little child's emotional and psychologically traumatic experience of falling down and skinning its knees, these trials and tribulations we experience as adult believers on earth will pass as well, and all will be fine in the end. God knows this already, so these human trials and tribulations to the believer are like the little child's skinned knee, of no long lasting consequence, even though the pain of our trials and tribulations are as painful to us in the moment as it is to the little child's scuffed up knees.

God omnisciently knows that the effects in the moment of these traumatic experiences will all be washed away, which makes His permitting these tragedies to occur perfectly understandable. In the long run, he knows that we will spiritually benefit as believers from these experiences. As traumatic as these trials may seem to us in the moment, they are more beneficial to us to have endured them. In the big scheme of things, the tears from these experiences will be of no consequence to our spiritual well being. Our spiritual life is part of eternity, whereas what we experience here on earth is merely a nanosecond of time in the big scheme of things.  Remember...

Romans 8:28
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.