“Neither this man nor his parent
sinned” said Jesus.
-John 9:3
We live in a broken, imperfect world.
One of the consequences is that bad things do happen to good people. Yet when
we are confronted with this, almost always our hearts cry out, “Why God? Why
did this happen to me?”
One of the common answers we hear is
that someone really isn’t so good, that the bad thing happened as the result of
personal failure or wrongdoing. While this may be true in some cases, that
answer don’t satisfy.
We read about this mentality in the
book of Job, in one of the oldest of all human dramas. Covered with boils and
robbed of his family and possessions by one tragedy after another, Job was
alone and grief-stricken. Job’s friends came to comfort him, but their comfort
turned into bitter accusations as they said, “Job, why don’t you confess your
fault and perhaps God will have mercy.” Even his wife counseled, “Curse God and
die.” But he did not die and he struggled with the very issue for days and
months.
If it is true that tragedy is
punishment, it would also be true that God is unjust and cruel. But have you
ever walked through a hospital pediatric ward and viewed some of the tiny
babies whose bodies are racked by pain? Are we to think that these innocent
babies are being punished for something they have done or their forebears did?
CHRISTIANS ARE NOT PERFECT – JUST
FORGIVEN. We have lost sight of the fact that when Jesus died for the sins of
the world, He also died for my sins and failures.
When we try to explain why bad things
happen to good people in terms of our personal failure, we lose sight of the
fact that God does not love me or punish me in terms of my essential goodness.
He is love and His nature is to love, not to inflict punishment on me.
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