Just the same (although it’s so terribly the wrong question to ask) we could ask ‘why do good things happen to bad people’. I will get to the heart of the matter and then expound:

• God is Love
• Love is not selfish
• God will not compromise free will
• Satan really wasn’t supposed to do that mess

By ‘that’ I mean what happened in Heaven (Revelation 12:7-9, Jude 1:6) thereby being the first of all Evil. Like anything else, (as Christians believe) everything happens in the Spirit realm ‘first’ (Eternity=???) before it happens on Earth. Here I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about power and influence, Lucifer’s presence affects the entire human race. Of course, we’d no chance to avoid that and also of course, man fell. In other words, we forget he wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place but here he is for us to contend with.

But God knows what He is doing. Let’s take a free will analogy. The Greek word for Hell found in 1 Peter 3:19 is “phulaké” which in this particular verse is operationalized as “prison”. On Earth, do prisoners have free will? The answer is yes but they are prevented from doing many things. However, as we all know, there are many acts that they do commit depending on the level and effectiveness of the authority which governs them. There is much to learn about Authority in this (lived) New Testament context. As uncomfortable it is to say that The Devil has free will we are closer to Corrections Officers who’d better understand that a) We sincerely have been given authority and b) we sincerely, truly must not co-mingle with the prisoners (his demons in the form of any one of our lustful behaviors.)

There is no use trying to understand the minutia of the creation narrative because I believe it was purposefully breathed by God to be expressed as written, in such a way that literally anyone could understand as much as they comprehend what was written, and as much as they seek Him He will teach us the Truth of the message . The Bible has passages where the takeaway is meant to be a (just about) entirely spiritual one to the near exclusion of the actuality of the events. The Book of Job is a good example; not that he was not real (I am always willing to defer to the literal to keep my openness with God) but some stories are more lent to oral tradition before being transcribed.

But again, all scriptures are God breathed (2 Timothy 3:16) so we forget to understand that He does not make mistakes. We forget that, although canonized, The Bible was written over 1500 years and anyone who reads and believes can see that the God being written of is the same in Genesis as He is in Revelation. All (and beyond) of His characteristics that we can readily think of are present and revealed over time through progressive revelation. Powerful, wise, and creating in the beginning, counseling, judging and merciful as He wills in ‘the middle’ including the New Testament, and extracting vengeance in The Book of Revelation.

Not that I could ever distill The Word but I tend to write for new comers.

So why do bad things happen to good people? Number one, they happen to ‘bad people’ as well. Number 2, a murderer, etc. has to murder somebody to qualify the designation. In other words, there is a reason God said not to do this. Harkening back to an earlier post, God will not put his children or any of his creation(s) on a leash (except for Satan and his angels), but he is clear to say throughout the entire scripture that for whatever a person does there will be consequences.

Let’s be taken to our limitations in understanding: If God would allow such things to transpire, then how great is the Judgement that awaits us when we meet him? We know it lasts forever but do we understand? Certainly not as human beings, no matter how ‘saved’ or pious, or legitimately humble anyone of us are. Any Church elder is apt to tell you the best way to come into obedience and alignment with God is to do or don’t do things simply because God said so, our curiosities we are born with kill more than just the cat; by the time you start finding out why he said to do or not to do you are already experiencing the kind of consequences which tell you to stop asking because you don’t want to know any more.

We’re born (especially with video games and apology tours) to vaguely believe we’ll have some kind of second chance or a chance to defend ourself in the afterlife (or else if we’re honest, we wouldn’t do anything at all that is offensive). A good exercise is to understand that God becomes much more frightening as a Judge if He gives you a chance to verbally answer for any transgression at the day of judgement. If you were to try it now in your mind with any sin you may have committed, you’ll see how horrifically selfish (ultimately) and deliberate (read, conviction) the reasoning was.

But here is the thing: There isn’t a thing that will occur at Judgement that He hasn’t told us all about already. The only difference is the call and answer process between any human being and God, which is at least one reason why the heart matters so much. Christ said in Matthew 24:14 “And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”. That should be a certain kind of sobering to trigger a person to understand that the only way not to worry about the end is to have Faith in that, to just believe (everything He ever said as much as possible0. This is of course not easy; what makes it difficult is that we are weak to live by what we see all too often.

I will end it here.

Until next time, take care.

Gregory Longmore, LMHC is an online-only Christian Professional Mental Health therapist based in NYC.