Have you ever wondered why "God allows bad things to happen to good people?" If so, perhaps the following article may answer at least part of that question.

There's a country and western gospel song that says: "When the angry waves areover and You've kept me safe and warm, remind me, Jesus, to thank You for the storm." Most of us are quick to blame God whenever things go wrong in our lives, but how many ever remember to thank Him for the storms? The storm, after all, could be His way of teaching us a lesson of some kind, something we need to know that we could never learn any other way. It could be a test of our faith to remind us Who is in charge. Or, it could be a situation He wants us to personally experience so that we can later use it to help someone else. Who knows why God allows bad things to happen to us? He's God; He can do whatever He wants. One thing is for sure: Whether our limited human minds choose to believe it or not, God has His reasons for the things He does, and whatever He does is always perfect.

This article will discuss two trains of thought as to why God allows bad things to happen to good people:

• Because we inherited our sinfulness from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
• Because God does some of His best work in and through "broken vessels"

Because we inherited our sinfulness from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

Yes, as evidenced in Genesis 3. Seems like it ALL goes back to the choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden. They "had it made" in the Garden. They had God for company; they didn't have to work for a living; they had all the food they could eat; they had everything they could possibly want - until they chose to disobey God. Adam and Eve "blew it over a piece of fruit" and Mankind has been suffering ever since.

After literally thousands of years of trying to teach Man and get him to live right, YHWH decided Man was never going to "get it right" on his own, and therefore provided His own holy Substitute in the Person of Yeshua. While Yeshua's death on the cross did not take away Man's suffering, it served to do some of the following:

• It took the weight off Man's shoulders to try to work his way into God's good graces.
• It did away with the need for animal sacrifices and many other things God used to demand of Man.
• Most importantly, Yeshua's death redeemed us once and for all. He took all of our sins upon Himself so that we might have eternity in Heaven-and the only thing required of us in exchange is to believe on the shed blood of the Messiah Yeshua; that He died for us.

He died for us! God personally experienced strife and suffering, and what's more, He chose to do it! His death on that cross was surely most excruciating. During His ministry He was persecuted; He was flogged, cursed, and spat upon, and His ultimate death on the cross was violent and gruesome. Because of our transgressions, He was pierced through unto death. (Please see Zechariah 12:10).

Talk about suffering! Let's examine what the Scriptures say about Yeshua's death:

Mark 15:1-39 1 Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate. 2 "Are you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate. "Yes, it is as you say," Jesus replied. 3 The chief priests accused him of many things. 4 So again Pilate asked him, "Aren't you going to answer? See how many things they are accusing you of." 5 But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed. 6 Now it was the custom at the Feast to release a prisoner whom the people requested. 7 A man called Barabbas was in prison with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the uprising. 8 The crowd came up and asked Pilate to do for them what he usually did. 9 "Do you want me to release to you the king of the Jews?" asked Pilate, 10 knowing it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him. 11 But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have Pilate release Barabbas instead. 12 "What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them. 13 "Crucify him!" they shouted. 14 "Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!" 15 Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified. 16 The soldiers led Jesus away into the palace (that is, the Praetorium) and called together the whole company of soldiers. 17 They put a purple robe on him, then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on him. 18 And they began to call out to him, "Hail, king of the Jews!" 19 Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Falling on their knees, they paid homage to him. 20 And when they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. 21 A certain man from Cyrene, Simon, the father of Alexander and Rufus, was passing by on his way in from the country, and they forced him to carry the cross. 22 They brought Jesus to the place called Golgotha (which means The Place of the Skull). 23Then they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. 24 And they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get. 25 It was the third hour when they crucified him. 26 The written notice of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. 27 They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. 29 Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "So! You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, 30 come down from the cross and save yourself!" 31In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! 32 Let this Christ, this King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see and believe." Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. 33 At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. 34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"--which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 35 When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah." 36 One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said. 37 With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. 38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"

Isaiah 52:14Just as there were many who were appalled at him -- his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man and his form marred beyond human likeness.

John 19:34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water.

Isaiah 53:3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Soldiers nailed His feet, one over the other to a rough splintered cross. Foot joints where the nerves are, were severed as jagged nails entered in. Severe pain was inflicted, as huge rough nails were hammered into tender flesh. Think about how badly it hurts when you bang your shin bone. Not only did it hurt but, in order to keep His lungs from collapsing and cause Him to suffocate, He had to push himself upright on His wounded feet.

Yeshua, the Divine Substitute bore the sins of those who rightly deserved the punishment of God. He was the innocent sufferer dying for the guilty. He was suffering for our transgressions. Observe the strong verbs Isaiah uses to describe the extreme painful judgment of God on the Sufferer.

Why did the divine Servant have to suffer?

The Psalmist in Psalm 119:176 tells us: "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant, For I do not forget Thy commandments." We are like a flock of dumb sheep that have all gone astray. All of us are destitute of salvation. We all have gone our own self-seeking way. We became egocentric instead of God-centered.

The second point to discuss about why God allows bad things to happen to good people is because He does some of His best work in and through "broken vessels":

Let's examine the meaning of a "broken vessel"?

Say a handsome man were to walk into this room wearing some expensive cologne. The aroma does not over power you, but when he leaves the sweet fragrance lingers on for a while. A few days later, you smell that same fragrance on another man and you are suddenly reminded of that nice guy you met at the Bible study.

So it is with authentic Christianity. Those who love the Lord Jesus emit a lovely "aroma". That distinctive sweet smell is the Spirit of God bearing His fruit in the lives of believers. There are Spirit-filled congregations all around the world that have that distinctive fragrance of the presence of Yeshua filling them. It is a rich bouquet of the fruit of the Spirit.

But SIN stinks!

Isaiah 64:6 All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.

Just look at the carnal world around you: it's full of cheating, adultering, murder, perverted sex and pornography, drugs and violence, etc. Sin and Carnal Christianity always have the smell of death about them. They have a repulsive odor. They literally "stink."

How does that relate to why God allows bad things to happen to good people?

In II Corinthians 4:7 the Apostle Paul writes about God's Holy Presence--the light God that shines into the lives and minds of believers: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves...."

The point Paul is making is God's valuable treasure is contained in weak, fragile, and valueless containers. Our earthen bodies are those weak, fragile, and valueless containers.

God doesn't use beautiful flasks to house His fragrance. He has chosen to put the treasure of His fragrance in clay pots. He uses earthen vessels, not the fine china. He takes simple clay pots and fills them with His glory. Fragile and flawed, cracked and leaky clay pots are His choice vessels.

He uses clay pots so He alone can get the glory.

Most of the time these old pots have to be broken before they emit the sweet fragrance of His grace. God does it through the pressures that come in our lives.

The NASB reads, "we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life of Jesus also maybe manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (II Cor 4:8-11).

When this pressuring takes place through affliction we feel the constraints of a confined space, and then the pain that it causes. We are left at a loss and perplexed by these pressures. In ancient writings it was used to describe one who was ruined by his creditors and was at his wits end.

There are times when that pressure takes the form of persecution. You feel like you are being hunted down like a wild animal. There are times Paul says it is like being deserted or abandoned in a time of difficulty. There are other times when we feel like we have been thrown down with force as when a wrestler throws his opponent to the floor, or of striking someone down with a sword.

The famous Christian minister and author A. W. Tozer said, "It is doubtful God can bless any man greatly until He has hurt him deeply."

Most of us have probably said: "Life is not fair. The wrong people get sick; the wrong people get robbed; the wrong people get killed in wars and in accidents...." Some people see life's unfairness and decide there is no God; the world is nothing but chaos. But we know there is sickness and death. Accidents occur every day. There are domestic fights. There are natural calamities such as earthquakes, mud slides, fires, flash floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and blizzards.

Why do good people get hurt? Why does evil seem to triumph over good? Those are age old questions. The process God uses hasn't changed. But, can you learn to love and forgive God when things don't turn out the way you would like? That is the more difficult question in life.

We want to be glazed and polished. We want to be painted, displayed and put on a safe shelf. But that's not God's way of producing His precious fragrance. God's way of producing His fragrance is to take the pot off the shelf, break it, and pour out the fragrance. He releases the sweet fragrance of His grace only by cracking the pot.

II Corinthians 4:11 -- "For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body." God's power is perfected in our weaknesses. When we die, He lives. When we lose, He wins. When we are weak, He is strong. When we are dependent, He is powerful. When we are tempted, He is triumphant.

God does this so that only He will get the glory. We cannot point at our triumphs and say, how great I am. We can't say, "Look what I have done."

In short, we suffer in this life because of the choice Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden. We suffer because of sin in our lives; we suffer because God allows it as a possible teaching tool; or so that we can experience something first-hand in order to be able to help someone else later. Whatever the reason, God wants us to seek Him out during our trials and tribulations so He can produce His fragrance in us and use our suffering to His glory.

So, the next time you weather a storm in your life, remember to praise God!