Ethics 11: If God Is Good, Why do Bad Things Happen? (2)

Note: For new readers, welcome! I greatly recommend you start back at the beginning of this series so that this makes sense. Just go to the search bar and type in "ethics" and all the ethics articles will pop up.

Hello, everyone. Time to talk about the second statement (as presented in the previous article): God can bring good out of bad. Please note that we are talking about the bad things in life that are not self-inflicted...like natural disasters, or even car accidents.

I believe this statement to be true. Many people do, but I'll still provide some general examples:

1. A distracted driver rams the back of your car at a stoplight, but God uses this incident to save the driver at fault.
2. An earthquake devastates thousands of homes, but the Church goes and shows the love of God to those affected by helping rebuild, provide food, etc.

Even terrible "unfair" things happen to missionaries. Take Jim Elliot for example.

If you've never heard of Jim Elliot or his story, I greatly recommend reading about it. Here's the jist of it:

Jim Elliot had a heart to evangelize to a people who had no civilization. For years, he flew planes over them and dropped down supplies. He did this to show that he meant no harm to them. Finally, he landed on the island. There was a miscommunication and Jim Elliot, and his entire crew with him were speared to death.

But the story doesn't stop there.

Jim Elliot's wife moved to that place and ended up saving the entire community. Jim Elliot didn't deserve to die, but he gave his life to save so many people. I would argue that God used Jim Elliot's sad story for good.

Now let's think about this statement (presented in the last article): the last thing God wants is for us to be hurt. But He can help us grow through our hurts.

If I wanted you to take away just one thing from this article, it would be this:

The Bible tells us that we will experience many trials and that this earthly life will not be perfect and easy. But God is good, and He wants to see us grow strong. God does not wish to intentionally bring upon harm to any person! But God won't just remove all of our problems--He loves us too much to do that. Instead, when bad things happen to us that we can't control, we can go to God and ask Him to help make us grow spiritually (and maybe physically) through this situation.

Some really good things just wouldn't have happened if certain disasters wouldn't have happened. I will close with one more example.

People have had a sin-nature ever since Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree (Genesis 3). This might seem unfair that all of humanity had to suffer for their mistake, but God came through this terrible situation and died for your sins so that you could be saved and live in eternity with God.

If you don't know who God is, or have never asked God into your heart, I encourage you to consider it. Because when you know God, you can discover your purpose that God has for you. Once you've discovered your purpose here on earth, you can make a difference.

Aaaand as always, thanks for reading and I'll see you next time!
~Caleb