Bad Things And Good People

This week several preachers that are very close to me are facing very dangerous medical situations. These are good men and what is happening in their lives amounts to a bad thing. Have you ever wondered why bad things happen to good people?

A few years ago my wife and I went through an incredibly difficult time. Our first son was born and required surgery when he was only 6 days old. In the following 2 years he had 6 surgeries for a variety of reasons, none of them was particularly life-threatening, but each of them represented a difficult obstacle for his mom and I. We discovered, in that time, that one of the most difficult things you can do, as a parent, is to relinquish your baby into the hands of a surgeon and watch them walk down that lonely cold corridor that leads to an operating room.

Two years and 23 days after my first son was born, his little brother made his grand entrance into this world. The doctors recognized, almost immediately, that there was a problem with our newborn son. The saga that followed was the culmination of an incredibly difficult 2 years. Our baby boy was born with a congenital heart defect. As they rushed him to a special care facility we were cautioned that it was likely that he wouldn't survive the trip.

I'm so thankful, today, for the power of prayer. Prayer was made that day, in the name of Jesus, and a process of healing began. There was an immediate radical change in the condition of our son's health, however, six days later he still had to undergo heart surgery. When the surgeons were finally done with us and he had recovered enough to finally go home, they warned us that we were looking forward to, at least, one more surgery within the next 4 years. However, that 4 years came and went and my precious son has not needed the second surgery. God is good!

During that trying time I contemplated the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" During one of my study times, God impressed an answer on my heart. I'll never forget preaching a message that rose from the answer to that famous question.

Today, nine years later, I find myself contemplating the same question. I'm going to have to go digging through my old notes and see if I can find and revisit the sermon I preached then. But I don't have those notes handy at this moment and I just want to jot down some random thoughts that are running through my mind in relation to the subject.

God, in his infinite wisdom, treats all men equally. As the scriptures say, time and circumstance happen to every man and, when it rains, it rains on the just and the unjust alike. Just because you are a "good person" doesn't mean you are sheltered from the rain. It only means that you will never go through the storm on your own. It will rain, the trials will come, and the difficulties will be there. But through it all, God is there with you to strengthen and encourage you as you overcome the obstacles in your path.

I believe that there is a reason for this. If God began to reserve hard times and difficult things for only those who truly "deserved" them then he would no longer be the impartial judge that his very nature dictates that he must be.

Consider this: God is no respecter of persons. Our salvation is based upon this premise. The gospel is to "whosoever will." It wasn't reserved just for those that were "good" enough because if it were, we would all be lost. Rather, God shows his mercy, without partiality, to anyone that will hear and obey his word. David said, in Psalm 130:3 (ESV) "If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" The answer is simple, none could stand if God wasn't impartial in his mercy.

This simple truth follows that premise. God doesn't mark down your righteousness as reason to exclude you from the storms of this life because if he did, his righteous nature would dictate that he mark down your iniquities and exclude you from his mercy.

Because of this I choose not to fear the storms of this life but rather to celebrate the fact that the same God that is impartial in the trials and tragedies of this life is abundant in his mercy towards me! He walks with me through every valley. His rod and his staff, they comfort me. He prepares for me a table in the presence of mine enemies and all of this is possible, in his righteousness, all because he didn't shelter me from the valley!