The Formula for Knowing God's Will

Isn’t this a common question for anyone who has seen other people in pain. In my life, I’ve had a dozen or so friends lose fathers, mothers or their spouses. Each time the question came up, “Why did God take my loved one, why do bad things happen to good people?”

Bad things happen to good people all the time. As I type this, there’s a war of sorts going on in Israel with Hamas. Good, innocent people on both sides have died horrifically. Women, children, elderly. Non-combatants. Same in Ukraine with the immoral and barbaric war put upon it by Russia. Why, God, are so many innocents dying?

How and why can God permit this? Why doesn’t He stop it?

Okay, let’s take a look at two sides of this question. First, what God says about it. Second, what the universe shows about it.

God. Okay, believe it or not, God’s hands are rather tied. Now, many of you may take issue with this because we all think that God is all powerful. And He is. However, He also obeys His own directives. Regarding the issue of Man, which means all of humanity, well He was quite clear in the Garden of Eden. He “commanded” Adam not to eat of a particular tree in the garden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He said, “for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” What happened, well, Adam and Eve ate from that tree after being successfully tempted by Lucifer in the form of a serpent.

Afterward, God basically explained to Adam and Eve — our forebears — that they now had a mortal life full of pain and toil and death. He had given Adam and Eve what is known as free will. Using that free will, they sinned against God, lost their immortality, began a life of pain and toil, and had knowledge of evil as well as good. But evil, new. And why is this bad? Because once you know evil, you can do evil. Ignorance is bliss, right? Well, bliss, gone.

Two things here. First, knowledge of evil. Since Adam and Eve, mankind has had this knowledge. Previous to disobeying God and reaping the repercussions, they didn’t know what murder was, didn’t know the word. After what is called their downfall, well, their son Cain murdered their son Abel over pride and envy. How did Cain know what murder was, how to do it? Evil is now part of human nature. We’re just born with it, into it, and need to overcome it in our lives. That’s God’s First Will for our lives, by the way. Transformation. And since Cain, humans have been killing each other non-stop. Thus, innocents die through evil, and that’s just the way the world is because God continues to give mankind free will and we continue, at least many of us, to choose evil.

God gives free will. It’s just the way He operates. It’s so very loving, really. He doesn’t want puppets that act all good and perfect but in reality have no choice in their love and service to Him. Think about your own child. Do you give them the ability to make their own decisions, even if they’re bad ones? Are you there for them if they make bad decisions? Of course you are. Can you stop the consequences of their bad decisions? Not really. Oh, you may try, but ultimately no. Like us earthly parents, even God as a parent allows us children to make our decisions and we have to live with the consequences, even those innocents we may hurt in the process. Otherwise, if God steps in and starts interfering with humanity, then we really don’t have free will after all, we’ll never really learn from our mistakes and pain, we won’t need Him, and we’ll just get worse. And God’s First Will for us is that we transform into His nature and character. That only happens through free will and the consequences, both good and bad, of our choices.

Second, when Man sinned against God, Man took the keys to earth from God and gave them to Lucifer. Previously, Man was immortal. Man knew no disease or pain. Earth was perfect. But when Man chose to disobey God, well, Man reaped the consequences. Man now became mortal. Man would know pain. Man would know disease, because Earth became diseased being apart from God and within Lucifer’s sphere of domination.

Look, theologically, these are deep issues difficult to address in a short article. All to say, bad things happen to good people because of the nature of the world we live in. Did God want your daughter to die in a collision caused by a drunk driver? No. Did God want your spouse to die young from cancer? No. Does God want anything bad that happens to happen? No. Can he work within those circumstances granting peace and wisdom and support while the outcomes play out? Yes. Can He heal? Yes, but God is not a performing monkey and healing is an entirely different topic. As I say in my book, God is not a vending machine where you put in a quarter and you get your candy or soda pop.

And neither is the universe or the world. Take meteorology. Imbalances in nature cause hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones. And these storms kill and destroy. Does nature prevent these storms? No, they actually serve a purpose which is to rectify the imbalances. In geology you have earthquakes, which also happen to correct the imbalance between forces stressing tectonic plates. Animals get diseases. I just read an article about the disappearance of King Crabs in Alaska. They’re disappearing because of starvation caused by global warming. Is that fair to them? No. However, it’s a natural consequence in the disruption of their environment.

Take astronomy. There was a huge asteroid that struck the earth causing the extinction of dinosaurs. Any day the earth could be subject to massive damage from more asteroids, solar flares, gamma bursts, effects to our magnetic field, ozone layer… things that will or will not happen where we’re largely unable to affect outcomes.

In all of this, bad things happen to good people because it is logical and largely unavoidable.

So, here is something you can do. When you find yourself in pain over whatever:

1. Give yourself time. It is okay to grieve. Go ahead and get mad at God. He’s big enough to take it. We’ve all been there with our kids. God’s shoulder is big. Go ahead and cry on it, pound on it if you must.
2. Don’t blame God. As we’ve briefly discussed, whether through nature of by human design, bad things happen to good people. Through nature and by Mankind’s choice, diseases and pestilences and illnesses happen to people. God did not want any of this. It’s what Mankind chose. Because through God’s love, we have free will, for better or for worse.
3. Ask God to help you through it. God says, ask and I’ll give it to you. He also says, you have to ask for the right things. (So don’t ask for a million dollars.) It is God’s way, and also nature’s, that pain will cause gain when treated correctly. Take fitness. You only gain more muscle by putting your existing muscles under stress, actually breaking the muscle fibers so they repair themselves creating more bulk and strength. Ouch = gain. Same when you’re in pain. Just ask God for help. Ask Him for joy. Ask Him to get you through the day. Ask Him several times a day. Ask Him for a friend. Does He move on your behalf these ways? Yes. That’s where He excels. And how He does this is all over scripture. So read and even that alone will bring encouragement and the ability to grow through your pain. Read the chapter in my book, “No pain, no gain.”
4. Become wiser. As you age in life and basically become a life veteran, you’ll see many instances and cycles where “life isn’t fair” or bad things happen to good people. And because you’ve been through some things or assisted others in “dealing with life,” you’re able to sit back and be wiser for what you’ve been through. You can now bestow this wisdom on others. How does this work? Well, take the military. When a new recruit straight out of training arrives at their new unit, they are assigned a “running mate” (at least that’s what they’re called in the Navy) who is experienced and will help that newbie learn the reality of military life, roles and responsibilities much faster and with less failure. As you choose to see pain as an opportunity for gain with God and others, you will become wiser and able to be this “running mate” for others in your life who hit challenges and need some help. Ultimately, this is what being a matriarch or patriarch is all about later in life. If you have chosen to be a person of wisdom, rather than a person of reckless-untamed-unlearned-emotional response, then you can take all your life experiences and share them as an elder — that patriarch or matriarch — whereby through your position and experience, you’ve earned the right to speak into the lives surrounding you. Wow! Please, don’t waste this opportunity. It is absolutely God’s will for you.
5. Become closer to God. As life progresses, you’ll see this cycle of pain, gain, repeat. You’ll see how God operates in these situations, what He can do versus what He doesn’t do. This basically means rather than blaming God for not stopping pain, you start to see how He’ll get you through that pain. And you’ll develop a newfound love and respect for God. Just like grown children go through periods of disillusionment with their parents and then when they have kids of their own, or experience new pains, they find themselves finally understanding their parents, finding deeper love and respect for them because they now understand from their own experiences. Just remember that per God’s FIRST will for your life, He’s trying to prepare you for eternity, which means transforming you into His values, into His way of looking at things. And that comes at a cost, sometimes high cost. Not of His choosing necessarily. God says He doesn’t tempt us with evil. Because of evil in the world, bad things happen. He can get you through it and you CAN be better for it. Not to make light of anything, but it’s your choice when bad things happen to good people. ; )