She messaged me a short simple question.  “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”  And that is question.  It’s the primary question that all of us face.  Why don’t people believe in God?  The answer is because suffering exists.  We live and act and expect that if God is real and if He is good, He would never allow anything bad to befall us.  But God was honest, He told humanity what would happen if we turned against Him.  It was very simple.  If we (humanity) decided to do things our way rather than His, we would embrace a way of life that led to suffering and death.  We decided on our way, and we still do.

Now we want to ask God why we face hard things, difficult things, bad things.  We face bad things because we are all now affected by our bad decisions.  Those bad decisions are actually rebellion against God Himself.  We may not have looked at it way when we made those decisions, but ever decision we have ever made that was selfish or self-serving without being rooted in a deep love for God and people has been what God calls sin.  So our original question, is no longer really the question.  The question changed when we opted to follow our desires over His.    The question now is not ‘why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?’ but why would God allow us (sinful, rebellious, selfish people) into His presence or His kingdom?  Why would God allow what is bad to enter and receive what is good?

The answer is because He is merciful. He is good. We wonder why bad things happen, but we chose those on our own.  God knows you experience bad things.  The worst this world has to offer is death, and that is what He dealt with first: on the cross.

So instead of asking why God allows bad things to happen to good people, we need to thank Him that we still have good things and in Him we have the promise of a good future.

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Here is the part of the actual response I gave when asked:

The bottom line is that the “bad things” you speak of are the consequences of sin in the world. Sometimes due to our own bad decisions, sometimes due to the decisions of others. Sin brought suffering and death into the world. Sin is anything that is rebellion against God or His law. Now when we understand that to its fullest extent we really know that we are none good. We are not good people. We are just thankful that God has mercy on us as we sin. He forgives us of that sin. But until we are with Him (through our death and entrance into His kingdom or His return to finalize the restoration of His kingdom on this earth…) we face a world full of the consequences of sin that has been mounting for thousands of years.