Posted on 09/17/2014 7:06:26 PM PDT by impactplayer
I have wondered about that, too. For example, a guy who partied his way through school somehow became a law professor and community organizer before turning to politics. He was elected to his state's legislature, then to the US Senate, and finally to the White House, always against weak opposition. He was then reelected, once again easily beating his weak opponent. When his term is through, he will spend the rest of his life playing golf, with occasional appearances on the rubber chicken circuit.
How's that for a charmed life?
For those who embrace this fact - the best is yet to come - so good it is not comparable to the suffering we experience now! By the way - it lasts for eternity! Suffering now - unspeakable joy soon. Death now - eternal life quicker than you think.
Why me? No answer - except the privilege to point to the one who makes it all right in the end and for eternity. "And they lived happily ever after" - is just a fairy tale ending unless you believe in Jesus. We're not quite at the end - it is around the corner.
It's an old, old problem.
there is a book about it
Let’s look at this from a basic point of view. Life is divided into three parts: being born, learning and experiencing things, and dying.
If after you were born, being a naturally good person, nothing bad ever happened to you, you would only learn and experience a fraction of the things that you might if bad things happened to you as well. Your life and your personality would be dull and very boring. TV, turkey sandwiches and paddle ball.
However, when bad things happen, they offer up a multitude of opportunities. You can succeed or fail against them, learn to avoid them, or even examine them to discover why you think they are bad in the first place, etc.
A bad habit, however, is to assign human or spiritual qualities to normal things, like saying they are lucky or unlucky.
An old Chinese story was of a farmer, who plowed his field with a stallion. But one day the stallion ran away.
“Oh, you unlucky man!” said the villagers.
But a week later the stallion returned with four wild mares, a bounty for the farmer.
“Oh, you are so lucky!” said the villagers, complementing him on his good fortune.
With 5 horses, he sold three of them to buy another plow, so that his son could plow land as well. But his son was not experienced, so he promptly broke his arm.
“Oh, you are such a very unlucky man!”, said the villagers.
But shortly thereafter, a group of Chinese army men came through, and took all the young men of the village, but not his son, because his arm was broken.
Weeping about the loss of their sons, the villagers said that the farmer must truly be blessed and lucky to keep his son.
At which point, the farmer angrily threw down his hat and exclaimed: “Good luck! Bad luck! Good luck! How can you tell the difference?”
When I watched my innocent son suffer as a little boy, I found great comfort in the book of Job.
The other realization that struck me is that these experiences would have an impact and shape him in ways that I could never understand. Gd was shaping His son in the form that he needed to be.
And, for all of his flaws and humanity, my son is a compassionate man. He could never be this loving if he never understood and could empathize with pain as he does.
Satan protects his own.
He doesn’t want them to turn to God so makes their life of sin successful.
Some people would say that bad things happen to people because of what they've done.
Others figure God gives the strongest the hardest trials to endure.
Greater minds than ours have wrestled with the questions of good and evil and how or why a loving God could allow evil and suffering. I doubt any of us will be able to figure it out or come up with better answers. Or any answer.
The closest answer I can come up with is:
Romans 8:18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
God is not capricious and would not allow something to hurt us for no reason. He knows and understands our pain and what we're going through. He knows how hard it is for us.
Of one thing I am absolutely and totally convinced in all the trials that I've endured. It's that God is such a God of love and mercy, that He would not allow the trials we have in our lives if there were not some far greater good that will come out of it later, something that will make the trials and hardships and sufferings pale in comparison.
He will not let us suffer for no reason. For that matter, He never does anything for no reason. He doesn't waste any time or effort (as it were) on working in our lives. There's ALWAYS a reason and it's always a good one.
It's simply a matter of trusting in His character enough to accept that.
How about because nobody is really a good person
Yes = what did Americans do to deserve a president like Barack Obama???????......
It's simply a matter of trusting in His character enough to accept that.
Thank you. I had to check and see if anyone reads the Bible anymore. God answers this question Himself in the book of Job.
Didn’t Solomon also say it rains on the just and the unjust? Are we not all sinful? Does not God know what He is doing? Sure we can ask Him, but wait for the answer after we die or when God comes back to rule the world and you can ask Him then. We should be thankful we are not tortured from birth to death and after death. Every moment of peace and goodness is a gift.
Because the fallen world is a dangerous place.
Well, aside from as a whole, turning their backs on God and Him letting them have the fruits of their decisions, Maybe nothing.
I believe that we are in the end times and that certain scenarios MUST be in place in order for end times prophecy to be fulfilled.
What happens in the end cannot come about suddenly, going from a godly, strong nation to one controlled by godless forces.
Transition take time.
One of the problems is that whenever there is judgment by God for sin or a people group, the righteous suffer as well as the unrighteous.
When Israel went into Babylonian captivity, men like Daniel and his friends also did, even though they are by all accounts, righteous and God fearing.
God is not a sugar daddy. If He were, people would come to Him just to use Him for what they can get out of Him.
And I see that kind of thinking as becoming a problem in much of Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity with the prosperity gospel thinking.
Sometimes we try too hard to figure out the “why’s” or “reasons” when in fact it's a simple case nothing in the world is perfect and it's ‘all’ aging. And no one is exempt from the affects.
I tend to believe no matter what unpleasantness we face God will indeed use it for our good as He has promised, even if we don't understand what that is or might be now, and may not know until we go home. It's enough that we can KNOW He will do as He says and accomplish good from all we face or endure.
Well, had Job done something bad?
Or was the suffering inflicted upon him maybe just part of a cruel bet between God and Satan?
Of course, the story does have a "happy ending." (Job is returned to health and wealth - though his many unjustly killed daughters and sons do remain dead.)
Regards,
But sometimes, you can tell the difference (e.g., innocent child being starved to death in concentration camp, etc.)
Regards,
Poor, innocent child dying of small pox in a gutter in India in the 19th century... Poor, abused child dying of multiple injuries in 21st-century America... How is God "testing" those children's "strength of faith?"
Regards,
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.