It Is NOT God's Will

Why do bad things happen? I believe this is the hardest question that life throws at us. All of us encounter tragedy at some point in our life. Unbelievable tragedy sometimes occurs. For me, this was my wife's death in 1999 at the tender age of 31. She left behind two sons, 2 and 1. Why would a loving and merciful God take such a beautiful, loving woman, Mom, wife and daughter so young and leave her kids without a Mom and the rest of us to ponder a life cut woefully short? I do not know the answer to this question. I will never know the answer to this question in my lifetime.

Adam Hamilton, Senior Pastor at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas is the best preacher I have ever heard. The man's sermons continually amaze me and cause me to think about my own faith and how to make it better. His sermon today addressed this very difficult question: Why do bad things happen?

First, let's question the question, if that makes sense. Does God allow bad things to happen? The assumption behind this question is that God is in control. And I believe that to a certain extent He is. However, if He is in total control, why is the Bible full of stories about His people constantly NOT doing as He commanded them to do? The Bible is full of stories about God picking up the pieces. If God were in full control would Adam and Eve have partaken of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden and introduced sin into the world? But can God prevent bad things from happening? Intellectually, it makes sense that God wrote the laws of nature, in a creation period version of a software program (Laws of Nature 1.0?). This says the Laws of Nature that God programmed will never be broken. Yet we hear stories of miracles occuring today. The deathly ill person who recovers. The person who survives a terribly tragic event buried under the rubble. So the Laws of Nature do not appear absolute. Yet these events are so few and far between that we still wonder. And we still ask ourselves, why would we worship a God that would even fathom these terrible tragedies?

Even today, I have no answer to this question. I know that God is. God is mysterious. He loves us and yet he allows us to suffer. The text of Pastor Hamilton's sermon was the book of Job. Job is a righteous man who suffers many bad things as Satan makes every attempt to get Job to turn away from God. What this book of the Bible becomes about is the advice of Job's friends. Job's friends tell him he must have sinned against God and that Job suffering is the Lord's retribution. The modern day equivalent is "this must have been God's will." Throughout the book, Job counters that he does not know what he has done to deserve all the suffering he endures. And many of us today feel the same way. So, why would I worship a God who let a terrible tragedy happen to me? I have spent many days being angry at God. I still get angry at God. Yet a friend once told me "God is still listening." And He has sent me people to help me deal with it.

What does this tell us today? First, that tragedy is going to happen. Tragedy is a part of life and we cannot control it. What can we control? Our response to tragedy. We should be beacons of hope, strength and courage. I remember the day my wife died in that tragic car accident. The accident occured just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, many miles from my home. One of the things the hospital did for me was call a couple of local churches. One church sent down lay people from their church to come and be with the kids and help me in my darkest hour. The pastor's wife from one church went to Wal-Mart and bought diapers for the boys and a change of clothes for all us, since our suitcases were in the car that was in the salvage yard that was closed for the evening. The generosity of these people will never be forgotten. No one told me "this was God's will." No one told me this was punishment or judgement for sin in my life, or in Angie's life. They came, they comforted, they provided hope.