Why do bad things happen to good people?
\nWhy do good things happen to bad people?
\nWhy does everything happen?
\nThen somebody says, “Why not?”<\/p>\n
The world is messed up.
\nPeople are messed up.
\nSo we’re basically left comparing ourselves with others.
\nIf we think we’re better than others, we’re the good people, and we deserve better things.
\nIf we think some people are not as good as ourselves, they’re the bad people, and they deserve worse things.<\/p>\n
If we’re in the top half (or quarter) of people with good things happening to us, we’re likely to think it’s because we’re better than others.
\nWe may not actually say we’re better—we may say (or believe) we made better choices because we’re smarter.
\nMost people with more good things happening have trouble understanding most people below them in the world.
\nMost people with more good things happening think that people below them should come up in the world by doing what they do.<\/p>\n
It is tempting for anyone to think that other people’s lives should be ‘fixed’ if they listened to our advice, because we’re ‘successful.’
\nWhen someone is clearly overloaded with ‘more than their share’ of bad, others with much more good in their lives don’t know what to do.
\nSo they try to explain it without being able to relate.
\nAny of us can communicate loud and clear that we think we’re better than those in trouble on top of trouble.<\/p>\n
Can we care—when we can’t explain?
\nCan we help—when we can’t fix?
\nCan we accept—when we’re uncomfortable?
\nCan we encourage—when we don’t have answers?
\nCan we touch—when we understand that we’re not better, really?
\nCan we pray with someone—when we don’t have anything to give?
\nCan we show, and tell, the love of Jesus, to anyone?
\nJesus “went about doing good, because God was with Him.”
\nAnd then He told us to “Go and do likewise.”<\/p>\n
To my memory of Daddy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? Why does everything happen? Then somebody says, “Why not?” The world is messed up. People are messed up. So we’re basically left comparing ourselves with others. If we think we’re better than others, we’re the good people, and we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2,7,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-educational","category-faith_based","category-inspire_lifter","category-political-cultural"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4205,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4195\/revisions\/4205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awordforthought.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}