"Articles - Oct"

Why Does God allow horrible things to happen?

It depends on the person asking the question.  Christians will ask, "Why does God allow bad things to happen?" But Mockers will ask, "Why does your god inflict calamities on innocent people?"  These two questions are seemingly similar but they are vastly different. 

As Christians we see cancer, disease, injustice, unfairness and randomness with dire results on innocent victims and we ask ourselves, "Why?" or "What was God's part in this (if any)?" or "Why didn't God stop this?" or "Why did God allow this?"  These are all valid questions as we ponder these situations because we have a heart that trusts God even when we do not understand God sometimes.

In Scripture we see that we humans are sinful and we were banished from the Garden of Eden.  We had an easy life in the Garden directly with God, face to face and in His direct presence.  We ate with Him, saw Him and we talked to Him directly.  We were sinless back then and we had no toil, no disease, no pain and no famine.  But this didn't last long and we humans became dissatisfied with an easy life and we became jealous, resentful and disrespectful.  We became tempted and we gave in to sin and we sinned against God by breaking his commandment.  We weren't happy with 98% of the trees in the Garden of Eden; we had to have one of the two excluded trees in the Garden (like God wouldn't find out about it). 

We were banished from the Garden but God blessed us and gave us the whole world to conquer (and to govern, and to protect, and to conserve and to administer).  Some people erroneously call this punishment but I see it as God understood our weaknesses and he gave us rules that we could deal with better.  Basically we need toil; toil gives us challenges, goals, trials, triumphs, success, competition, pride, envy and even failures.  Strangely we need these things but if we have an easy life, then we get jealous, resentful and disrespectful toward God. 

Because of this God gave us great minds to keep us busy.  He gave us observations, investigations, experimentations, discoveries and inventions.  He gave us language, poetry, music, philosophy, sports, government, science and engineering.  To challenge us, God gave us hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanoes, disease and famine.

God gave us disease to challenge us and to keep us busy; he did not give us disease to defeat us.  If we keep trying we will conquer cancer; if we become lazy then cancer will defeat us.  If we are defeated then it is because we did it to ourselves, not because God did it to us.

Along the way people will suffer and die; innocent people, children, babies, old people and the unborn.  This is just a fact of who we are, this is a result of who we are, this is the predicament that we put ourselves in; this is not something that we can blame God for.  God administered this plan but we signed up for it; it is who we are.

However all along the way there are opportunities for the rest of us.  Will we show compassion and care for these people as they are going through their suffering or will we dump their bodies in the river?  Will we invent new medical procedures or will we feed them to lions and wild animals for sport?   Will we invest in infrastructure for hospitals, clinics, Universities and research or will we blame them for their sins and curse them for their bad luck?  Will our society (Government, businesses and individuals) support careers in the medical fields or will be blame them for being a tax burden? 

In the scriptures we can find where Jesus said that the crippled, diseased, elderly and lame are not a burden on us but so that we can show care and compassion and aid for them.  We should be a blessing for them.  Jesus said to the Pharisees (paraphrasing), "You have not helped me when you could have helped."  The Pharisees asked, "When have we not helped you?"  Jesus replied, "When you did not help the old, needy, sick, disadvantaged, diseased, crippled; you did these things to me."

How do we react when our loved one has cancer, disease, affliction, infirmity or injustice?  Are we the type of person who banks up good credits?  Do we go to Church regularly to earn points?  Do we read the Bible to earn favor?  Are we a good person during the week to impress God?  These are just empty ways to treat God as an insurance policy.  So when a problem arises, do we tell God, "Now its your turn, you owe me one, do the following or else....?"  If this is our attitude, then we are treating God as our personal genie; we rub the lamp and the genie owes us three wishes.  In the genie example we are the master and God is the slave, our servant.  In the insurance example, we bought grace instead of humbly trusting God for his grace.  These attitudes are clearly not in the Bible, either we were mis-taught, self-taught or we read some other book instead of the Bible.  On earth we live in a transaction society, we pay for this and we get that, but God's ways are not earthly ways.

Perhaps you are not the above person.  Are we the type who never helps strangers?  Do we hate people who help other people; do we hate people who need assistance?  Do we only help others when we get something in return?  Are you the type of person who says, "My money is mine and I should never pay taxes or make donations because other people could benefit from my money."  Some people never donated a penny to any cause: world hunger, hospitals, health insurance, homeless, environment, cancer, research, children, needy, elderly, etc.  Do we hate non-profits because they donate to all of these causes and more?  Some people have nothing vested in non-profits because they never donated a penny to them and yet they hate them.  Why do they hate them? 

Is it because they feel bad because other people are generous with their money?  Next comes the irony, next comes the hypocrite that they are.  Now their family member is in need (death, dying, impaired, diseased, injustice, etc.).  Now their family needs costly assistance, and here they are crying and complaining that there is no assistance for them.  They are SO concerned, yet even in this case they don't give a penny to their needs.  Instead they create such a commotion, diversion, distraction towards the problem, yet they are the problem; ironic, hypocrite!

All they have to look forward to is dying.  They will die with a smile on their face knowing that they won the game; they never gave anything to anyone, so in their imaginary, delusional world they win first place.  There are several ironies to this but one is that all the money that they prevented other people from getting, other people get after they die.  Their estate goes to probate and half of it goes to the state and to lawyers.  The remaining portion goes to those listed in their will but they didn't list anyone because even they thought it was hypocritical since they never gave their relatives any money when they were living so why should they get anything after you die.  But the courts will look for living relatives and will give them the remainder of your estate.  How ironic, they got more from you when you were dead than when you were alive.   This is your legacy that you will be known for; you will not be remembered for winning first place; that was solely in your self-centered, selfish, petty mind. 

So, how we answer the question reveals a lot about who we are.  How we lived our lives will reveal which person we are.  Which type of person are you?  Have we generously given our time and money over the years to Churches, charities, causes, fund raising, community outreach, missions, helping children and helping the needy and elderly?  Have we supported infrastructure for taxes, hospitals, veterans, colleges and healthcare?  Or are you going to say, "It's their fault!  Not with MY money.  It's God's fault!"

A lot will be revealed when bad things happen to our families and loved ones who will be in need.  How will we react when tragedy happens?  Will we help generously or will we cause a diversion to waste our time blaming everyone and everything else?  Will we trust God or blame God? 

God never told the Christians that His people would have an easy time.  Our only promise is that we have everlasting peace in heaven through salvation.  Christians have problems too (unfairness, injustice, disaster, vandalism, car problems, job problems, money problems, school problems, family problems) just like the pagans do.  The difference is that we trust God and we pray for his guidance and blessings to help us through these situations, whereas the mockers get a broken fingernail and they curse God and hate the Christians!

The mockers hate the Christians because the mockers hate God; they rejected God to remain a pagan.  They hate the Christians because the Christians have salvation.  The mockers blame God and they try to put doubt in the minds and hearts of the Christians.  The mockers will ask, "Why did God single that kid out of the crowd and inflict cancer on her?"  This is a favorite trick of the mockers, to take randomness out of the situation, to perverse the question to where the question is loaded where it blames God for being malicious, devious and evil. 

The Mockers will try to make you think that God lounges around in Heaven, reaches into a bin of darts with names on them, selects one and throws it at the dart board called cancer.  Following this illogic then He has many more dart boards called: car wreck, acne, teen pregnancy, drunk driving, hurricane, aggressive driving, fighting, jealousy, revenge, anger, arrogance, pride, envy, gluttony, hatred, ignorance, etc.  You see that this mocking is ridiculous; God doesn’t inflict any of these.  All of these are the result of natural occurrences or from human mistakes, not from God. 

God was present during most of these saying, “You shouldn’t be doing that.”  But the devil was there also and he was saying, “Go ahead and do it, live life to the fullest with no consequences.”  Which advice do you listen to?  You see God doesn’t force anyone to listen to Him; he wants it to be your free will.  If God forced people to follow his advice, then God would be responsible for people accepting Him; this is pre destiny where people are not responsible for their actions.  You see that pre destiny is nonsense.  Since it is our free will to reject God’s Word, then we are fully responsible; we cannot blame God.  Either we end up in Heaven because we believed in God and asked Him for forgiveness or we end up in Hell where we have no one to blame but ourselves for rejecting God

Free Gifts

God is a generous God and he gives us many things for free even before we believe in and accept Him.  God gives us prayers; we do not have to be Christians first.  He gives us this free gift so that we can get to know Him and to trust Him.

To be continued....

The Books of the Bible

In the books of Genesis through to Joshua, God begins with Creation, Adam and Eve and sin and goes to Noah, Abraham's Covenant, Moses' Exodus and Joshua's restoral back into Israel.   These books show us many miracles that God did for his people; they also show us how God showed Himself to his people by using various forms: residing with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (before sin), a burning bush, an audible voice, visions is dreams, sending angels, sending visitors, a fire over the mountain, a cloud by day, a flame by night, residing in the Tent of Tabernacle, etc. 

Next in Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings and 1 & 2 Chronicles, in these books of the Old Testament, we see how God's people, the Israelites, react to God.  Some years they remember their Covenant and they follow only God and they reject the false gods.  During these years, God blesses them with health, wealth, prosperity and protecting their borders.  During other years they forget their Covenant and they worship the false gods.  During the false years God removes his blessings and the Israelites fall victim to their invading neighbors.

To be continued....