A lot of people reject God because of bad things going on in their life and when people ask why bad things happen to good people, my response is this: Because that’s life. Bad things happen to everyone no matter their beliefs or lifestyle or anything they do or say. It’s just what happens in a fallen world. There are some bad situations in which God uses for good, especially for those who love Him, but for anyone too. 

The Bible says that Jesus was perfect so why did he have to die? He was a good person. Well, he died for two reasons, one is because the Jews and religious leaders hated him because he made them uncomfortable and called them out for the fallacies in their behaviors. The second reason is so that we can live in eternity with God, forgiven from our sins. God loves all of His creation and He is right there beside you crying with you. He isn’t directly causing the bad things, but he is allowing them for growth in your character. Metal has to be tested by fire before it can be pure. You can’t grow unless you are pushed, the problem arises in your reaction. 

God has a plan for everyone and sometimes that doesn’t line up with our plans. Why would he allow suffering? Because how else are we supposed to lean on Him and trust Him to provide for us? God can do all things, and if you don’t believe that, then does it really hurt to ask? Worst case scenario, God isn’t real and you lost nothing in spending a few minutes asking. Best case scenario, God is real and He gives you an answer that fits His plan for you. He knows what is best, by all means that does not mean all things will be fine and dandy! Absolutely not! Every single human being has issues and rough spots and loss and pain, but God wants to use you and help you through that. He is there for you. Pain, sadness, and death exist because we live in a world full of sin and death that has been doomed because of the sins of everyone. 

A lot of people forget about the one who actually causes the bad stuff and that’s Satan. He is the one to blame, not God. He is the one who makes things go wrong. Satan’s mission statement is to steal, kill, and destroy. He would like nothing more than for everyone to die. But God loves His creation and gave us an out, a way to escape Satan’s never ending cycle, Jesus died and suffered so that we didn’t have to go through life alone. 

Do you remember the story of Job? God and Satan were meeting together and God was bragging about how fantastic and faithful Job was. Satan took that as a challenge and suggested that maybe he is just faithful because he hasn’t had a reason not to be? So God gave Satan permission to test Job by literally destroying his life and everyone he cared about. He took away his family, his living, his health, Satan left him with nothing but his life and his extremely annoying wife and friends. God allowed that to happen because He knew it would strengthen His relationship with Job, He knew he could trust Job to stay faithful. 

In James 1:2-8 we are told to; “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.” So when we face trials, we should be happy and thankful that God trusts us enough to know that we can handle it, and that we will come out the better in the end if we stay faithful.

That verse isn’t saying that once you have had a trial then life will be sunshine and roses, rather there will be a few lemons because that is how a fallen world is. But what it is saying is that once you have faced trials and learned to trust God through them, that when you do have trouble, you will have a better way of handling it so that it won’t become such a big trial that it shakes your faith. It will be a small lemon that you know how to handle through God’s help.

I struggled with depression for years, I’m a good person, why would God allow me to suffer? I did not have anyone around me that I felt were friends, I felt like everyone would care less if I disappeared. I thought I was fat and uninteresting and awkward and unappealing, why else would no one like me? I craved human acceptance but was never accepted. I longed for someone to acknowledge me as worthy of their attention and devotion but never got what I was looking for. Did God just not care about me, and just walked away? No! He was right there for me. He kept throwing hints in my face that I was worth it to Him. I finally realized after spending the majority of my teen years hating myself and falling into the same sins just to distract myself, that God is the only friend I need. Humans are messy and unpredictable, but God is always there, always cares and never changes. 

Because He loves us He can’t just make everyone believe in Him because that wouldn’t be love. That would be abuse. God wants you to be able to make your own decision about Him, if that means rejecting Him, He will never stop loving you, it just means you are missing out on the best life possible. God doesn’t allow bad things to happen just to laugh at us fumbling through life, He allows bad things to happen because no one is perfect and that is the price of our sins, but we can be forgiven and given a hope for a perfect life in the future.