God’s Perspective When Bad Things Happen

Tragedies are a part of life. Children lose parents, parents lose children, spouses lose spouses, people get cancer. And in the end, everyone dies. Whenever tragedy strikes, a common question is “why?” Why me, why them, why now? This article won’t go into all of the theology behind this; many books have been written about it. Rather, we will look at what God reveals to us about suffering, and our reactions.

Years ago, when tragedy struck someone in my own family, a friend made this comment: “there are two ways that they could go; turn to God, or pull away from him”. That is so true. Scripture is full of examples where God sends judgement, intending that his people would turn back to him. But in so many cases, “they refused to repent”. (See Jeremiah 44, Amos 4, and Revelation 16). In another famous case, Job was described as a righteous man, and yet God allowed him to suffer severely (see article, Job Teaches Us About Suffering.)

What is God’s Perspective?

In Job’s case, God never answers the question of “why”. He simply tells Job and his “friends” that he is God, he made everything, and he runs the universe. Isaiah 55:9, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Deuteronomy 29:29, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” God reserves certain “secret things” for himself, things that we can’t understand with our finite minds, but he reveals everything we need to know for this life.

We will never totally understand God. That’s why “why” is generally the wrong question to ask him when bad things happen.

Our Reaction

Hebrews 12: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons (and daughters). For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?” Another wording for this is “endure hardship as discipline”. The word discipline is often equated with punishment. That is sometimes true, but the broader definition has to to with training, teaching, educating, in essence, “discipling”.

It’s how Jesus related to his disciples. In the series “The Chosen”, Jesus often refers to his disciples as his “students”. That’s a very apt translation. He spent a lot of time both correcting and teaching his students. God the Father loves us too much to leave us to our own devices. He sometimes allows bad things to be “teaching moments”, so that we can learn to be his obedient sons and daughters.

So when bad things happen to us, our question shouldn’t be “why”. But we are students, in God’s classroom of life. Our questions to our Teacher should be like these: “Lord, what are you showing me through this? What do I need to learn? Do I need to repent of anything?”

Two Examples

John Wimber went through a time early in his ministry where he was very discouraged, wasn’t bearing any fruit, and was very unhappy in his work. He asked God “Lord, what’s wrong with me?” In his words, “the Lord really unloaded on me!” God proceeded to let him know everything he was doing wrong, and he repented and moved on to found the Vineyard churches. Wimber later said that God will always answer a prayer like that, because he wants us to draw near to him, and to do as Hebrews 12:1 says, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely”. Sometimes we need God to point these things out to us.

Steve Saint is the son of Nick Saint, one of the missionaries with Jim Elliot killed by a group of Aucas in Ecuador in the 1950s. Steve became a pilot like his father, serving the Auca people. Later in his life, he was severely injured while testing equipment for his airplane. He was initially partly paralyzed from the neck down, but has made progress and is now classified as an “incomplete quadriplegic”. In an interview, he said this: “Trusting God to take away pain is acceptable, but trusting God’s will and His love when He doesn’t take away the pain, that’s our greatest opportunity to demonstrate faith.” God uses circumstances like this as a witness, and ultimately for his glory.

He is Faithful

Jesus, who suffered so much for us, promised in, John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” Yes, he promised us trials, difficulties, tragedies, persecutions, and many hard things. But he is faithful to help us endure, and to keep us in him no matter what happens. Our life on the earth is very short, and pales in comparison to our eternal life with God. Hebrews 12:2 tells us about Jesus, that “…for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross…”.

Paul sums this up in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” Paul suffered many tribulations, but to him, they were “light and momentary”, because he could see God’s perspective. I pray that we can do the same, in all of our troubles.