Why does God allow bad things to happen?

Has a child ever asked you why bad things happen, or worse, why God would allow horrible things to happen?
Perhaps, following the death of a beloved family pet, your child asked you to explain how God could let something so bad happen to them. Or maybe a grandparent has died and the child cannot understand why God would allow it.

 

How do you explain that God allows bad things to happen to them and He is still good?

That’s a hard question to answer.

 

Following the death of my mother, when she was only 36 years old, I wondered the very same question. Athiesm offered no comfort to me. However, once I came to faith in the Lord Jesus, things made more sense. It’s been many years of wondering, reading and learning, but in this multi-part blog, I hope to offer help to parents. Many parents may be at a loss on how to answer the question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen”?

 

As a person with lived experience of disappointments and heartaches, my introverted nature provided ample time to consider why this question. In addition, I struggle to think in theoretical, abstract ways and prefer to consider things in more concrete, literal ways, which seems to help children, as they are literal thinkers.

 

So, if you are here to learn another way to explain why God allows hardships to happen, perhaps my little story can be useful as you explain it to children:

 

My story about free will

 

As a person who is allergic to most things in this world, I have explained to my children that we can never have pets. They were always disappointed by this. 

 

One year, my youngest saw a robot dog advertized on TV and asked for it for her birthday. I considered this toy dog. It required batteries, not food. It didn’t require vet appointments, walks in cold weather or bowls of dog treats cluttering up my kitchen. So, I purchased the robot dog as my daughter’s birthday gift.

 

Once we filled the belly with hundreds of heavy D batteries and attached the plastic leash, it walked, barked, and whined. My daughters loved this cute robot dog. The toy manufacturer, Hasboro, had programmed it to perform a set of behaviours, to mimic a real dog, as much as possible.

 

My daughters loved this toy.

 

For two days.

 

And they soon discovered that a toy dog lacked all the charm of a real dog with a personality and a will of it’s own. I mean, a toy dog cannot misbehave, reject your hugs, or lick you unexpectedly. The toy dog has no agency, feelings, or soul. It cannot act independently or choose not to love you.

 

Even when my daughters played with the dog, it couldn’t return the love and interact with them or choose to love them.

 

The novelty wore off quickly.

 

The toy dog had no capacity to love them voluntarily.

 

God created us to have free will which means He risks us choosing other things and not faith or relationship with Him.

He created us because He had so much love to give and wanted recipients to receive the love, just like my girls.

 

I prefer having free will to choose my behaviour and choose whom I love. God gave me that choice. Robots, on the other hand, do not have the capacity to choose but only obey. Therefore they cannot love. It must be a choice or it isn’t love.

 

Some people use their free will to sin and do evil, hurtful things. Unfortunately, we can’t have free will without the choice to sin, as well. Adam and Eve used their free will to sin. It doesn’t make it right, but it explains our sinful nature. Even Apostle Paul struggled with his sinful nature.

 

“For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19)

 

If we are human, we’ll have the desire to sin. It takes a mindshift to deprioritize the desire to sin. It requires us to pull closer to the will of God and ask Him to give us a clean heart.

 

To return to our question, why does God allow bad things to happen? Because He blessed us with the gift of choice. Most of us use that choice to sin. We are more like the real dog that chewed the corner of the sofa when the person wasn’t looking than the robot dog that only did what it was programmed to do.

 

Which is better: robot dog or real dog? Which one returns real love: robot or real?

 

I hope this helps. The answer is not simple but laying the groundwork will help children understand some important concepts. Next week I will discuss more ways to explain to children why God allows bad things to happen in our world.