Why Do Bad Things Happen to God's People

Last month our pastor taught on 2 Corinthians 1:3-11. He said the question we often ask is "Why do bad things happen to good people?" But Romans 3:12 makes it clear that there are no good people, "All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." Romans 3:12

Instead, the question should be, "Why do good things happen to bad people?" This is quite a different perspective from popular opinion.

Here are 10 of the reasons our pastor gave why bad things happen to God's people, according to the scriptures:

1. Verse 3-4: It allows me to know God better. Suffering is a prerequisite for knowing God's comfort.
2. Verse 4a: It equips me to be a comfort to others. You can relate to their problem and to the solution.
3. Verse 5: It is part of belonging to Christ. Abundant sufferings and abundant comfort is part of the package of belonging to Christ. (The cross has demolished for all time that life is fair).
4. Verse 6a: It is the price of reaching lost people. (2 Corinthians 12:15)
5. Verse 6b-7: It is the opportunity to demonstrate my faith. When do people watch me most closely? When suffering comes into my life!
6. Verse 8: It causes me to focus on what's really important. C. S. Lewis said, "God whispers in our pleasure, but He shouts in our pain."
7. Verse 9: It keeps me from trusting in myself.
"God won't put more on you than you can bear." This is not in the Bible as people often claim.
Verse 8 says "...we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength." This is "more than we can bear."
8. Verse 9b-10: It makes me trust in God alone.
9. Verse 11a: It shows me my need of others. When you're suffering, you ask others to pray. It also allows me to ask for help and allow others to serve me (and vice versa).
10. Verse 11b: It brings more praise to God. Results of others praying: I get help and God gets more thanks.

Concerned

But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" Jonah 4:10-11

Another point in the Book of Jonah was very convicting to me. God had made a vine grow up around Jonah to provide shelter from the sun and wind and then He destroyed it. God was using this as an object lesson for Jonah. After He destroyed it Jonah got all upset over this vine. God made the point to Jonah that while he was so concerned with this vine, God's concern was for the people of Ninevah (who were lost & needed God's truth revealed to them).

The question from this is what are my concerns?
Are my concerns all about me?
Are they about the temporary things and not things of eternal value?
Are they about my comfort?
Are they about what I want?

God has one concern: PEOPLE. God's point was that our concerns should be His concerns. Vines die, fads end, material goods will perish. People will live forever--somewhere; that is what God cares about and that is what I should care about. I'm praying for God to make my concerns the same as His!!