I asked myself this questions many times as a teenager and walking the Christian path. I still ask it now.
I was part of a charismatic church for a while, did their ALPHA course twice, but their answers always seemed unsatisfactory.
Their answer pretty much is all the bad things are man-made, even the natural disasters, as it is our actions in not looking after the world environmentally speaking that cause those too.
But then you could ask why do bad things happen to good people?
Or why some people have worse luck than others?
Why no matter what they do, does it not work out?
It is a question that leads to many other questions.
If the Biblical sense of God is real, then he gave us free will, so therefore in effect he has allowed all these things to happen and knew they would happen, as he is all knowing and then the ‘why’ becomes even bigger as if He is love and all forgiving, then yes why do bad things happen?
If he is all forgiving, then everyone despite what they do and how they live their lives will not go to Hell
There should be no Hell.
There maybe some truth in the Bible, but it has been misinterpreted and diluted through the centuries. And the stories contained within are reiterations of stories older than when it was 'documented'.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in an omniscient being, sometimes, as I think, there will always be a sliver of doubt in the back of my mind as that’s human nature.
Well if there is no afterlife, it leads to many more difficult questions and realizations, that I keep in a box marked “Do not open”. (It gets opened occasionally and thought about).
But, I will choose how to honor what I believe in, not a church - no ‘human’ can rule how that works for each individual person.
Not organized religion.
Organised religion in itself has caused wars and many ‘bad’ things to happen in the name of these ‘gods’.
And the churches I have belonged to were either rife with hypocrisy and judgment, or hellfire and brimstone.
I wasn’t allowed to join the charismatic one, as I moved into a flat with my boyfriend at the time and that was frowned upon as we weren’t married, but at the same time, the church was full of teenage single mothers.
However, there are people like Vic Hutchinson, who has this vision of 24/7 hour churches where broken people can go, when they are at there lowest, someone is there for them when bad things happen. That’s a real church in my opinion.
Where anyone and everyone is welcome.
No-one is perfect after all.
There is not one of us that say hand on heart that we have never once judged someone.
Excuse my rant, I went a bit off track there…
...But maybe bad things happen to bring us together, to develop our characteristics, to experience life, to continuously see it through new eyes.
Nothing to do with a God.
Just the process of life.
Perhaps its the very perception of a God, means we have someone\something to blame when things do go wrong, which again is human nature.
Even the words Good and bad are perceptions and are somewhat different in each person’s heart, if you delve down.
If you think about it there is that saying “One Man’s trash is another Man’s Treasure”
At the end of the day, it’s learning how to best deal with the set of cards we have been dealt and making the most of them.
Good and bad things will happen, it’s inevitable, but its how we choose to deal with them, act because of them, or how they inspire us.
Bad things can lead to good outcomes.
It’s about embracing life - warts and all.
How would we even know what good is, if we haven’t experienced the bad?
And that's my thoughts on that question...
With <3 @hopehuggs
