Why do Bad Things Happen?

Why do Bad Things Happen? Has anything bad ever happened to you or someone you know? Why do bad things happen? When God created us, His desire was for a special relationship. He didn’t want us to be forced or programmed to love Him like a computer does tasks without emotions or thought. He gave us emotions, the ability to think, and the ability to choose. Does everyone choose the life God gives? No, sadly some people don’t choose Jesus. They live a life apart from God and make bad choices. Even when we do choose God, we sometimes still don’t choose His ways. We aren’t born looking like Jesus. We must first choose and get to know Him. Then we will begin to look like Him. We will make better choices! Sometimes we choose to be selfish instead of loving others like Jesus does. If I choose to love myself more than Jesus or others and take something that isn’t mine, what happens? Someone is hurt! God’s ways are good for everyone. He is perfect love, and He teaches us to walk so we don’t hurt others. Sadly, everyone doesn’t always choose God’s ways and then bad things happen. Sometimes we don’t KNOW what God wants. Do you always know what you are supposed to do? I don’t! Just as we aren’t born loving the way God does, we aren’t born knowing everything either! How do we learn? We learn by reading the Bible and learning about Jesus. Jesus is our perfect example. We are to live the way He lived. We learn by spending time with God. He will teach us. We can also learn how to live by listening to those who have known Jesus longer than we have. For example, when your parents teach you to not lie, steal, or disobey they are teaching you God’s character. The last reason bad things happen is because we live in a world that has sin. When God first created man there wasn’t sin and there wasn’t death, pain, or bad things. Sin comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Because of sin in the world, bad things happen. There are storms, accidents, and death. This isn’t God’s desire. The great news is when we choose God we will live forever with Him. As we walk with Jesus He helps us know how to handle bad things that happen because of sin in the world. So basically bad things happen because of sin. It can be sin in the earth, when we know better but choose sin anyway, or when we haven’t learned God’s ways and sin because we don’t know how to live well. The challenge is to press into Jesus to learn His ways and choose to live as He did!