Why do bad things happen to good people is a question I have heard often. I get why we ask it. We HATE it when bad things happen.

To us.

To those we love.

To anyone who we don’t think deserves it.

I realize we shouldn’t want anyone to experience ‘bad stuff,’ but if we are being real, we have to admit that there are times when we are less bothered when bad things happen to people we might feel are bad.

As humans, we have a scale of badness (we probably don’t use that title). For example, in my cultural background, we frown on someone stealing something from a shop, even a small thing, but excuse someone consistently driving over the speed limit. We have decided that one is worse than the other, one deserves a bigger punishment than the other. It makes total sense to us. Most things are culturally agreed upon, but of course, there are exceptions depending on how we grew up, family values, etc.

The challenge of a badness scale is that it often leaves us able to excuse any behaviors we have that might fall short of what we or God might expect of us.

Why?

Because, we will always be able to find someone who is doing something worse than us and that helps us. Therefore, when it comes to the question of why would a bad thing happen to me, or someone I love, we feel justified in asking it because we see others who are engaging in something worse and feel wronged if they seem to be healthy or thriving when we aren’t.

Regardless of our badness scales, the truth is in the eyes of God we have all fallen short of His glory. The shoplifter….. and the slight overspeeder. Just to be clear, I don’t think God has a scale of badness, at least not in the way that we humans seem to operate it. On one hand, He sees our sin and to Him sin is sin. There isn’t a small sin or a big sin. It’s just sin. We have missed the mark of what He longs for us. On the other hand, thankfully, He, through Jesus, has given us a chance of redemption and no longer views those of us who choose Him as sinners.

However, on our own none of us can stand blameless before Him.

With that as our introduction I want to look at a passage I was reading in the Bible this morning that highlighted this to me. It’s a conversation that the Lord had with King Solomon in a dream.

As for you, if you walk before me faithfully as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor to rule over Israel.’ “But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. I will make it a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. This temple will become a heap of rubble. All who pass by will be appalled and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD, the God of their ancestors, who brought them out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them —that is why he brought all this disaster on them.’” 2 Chronicles 7:17-22

I’ve emphasized some words to show the reality of what God is telling Solomon. The Lord is making it clear that if the temple fails and the nation falls away from Him, it is on Solomon’s shoulders. It’s not because of spiritual warfare, bad luck, or some kind of unfair series of events. It’s because they, and He, didn’t do what they were asked to do, pure and simple.

Solomon for most of his life was a good and incredibly wise King. Solomon had acted well in front of the Lord and was a ‘good person’ in the eyes of anyone who was looking on. Under his leadership Israel flourished and was the centre of the known world at the time. However, by the end of his life and reign it had been pronounced that the Kingdom would be split but not in His lifetime. That seems strange right? Solomon, more than most, would have had the right to ask the ‘why would a bad thing happen to me’ question. When we look back we see that just as the Lord said, the coming downfall of the Kingdom lay squarely on his kingly shoulders.

King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the LORD; he did not follow the LORD completely, as David his father had done. On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods. 1 Kings 11:1-8 (NIV)

Solomon should have been in no doubt where the blame lay and I think we might need to begin thinking a little more out that direction too.

I’m not trying to say that every bad thing that happens is or will be our fault. There are a whole range of reasons things can go wrong, each situation is different than the next, so please don’t hear that it’s ALL our fault if something bad happens. Really all I am trying to say is that we need to take responsibility for our lives. We need to not excuse our behaviours, we need to not rank and rate ourselves compared to others, and let’s ensure that we aren’t pointing out specks in others lives when we have planks in ours.

Let’s own our stuff, let’s be real with what we’ve got wrong.