This is something I wrote while thinking of the times we are living in.
Why me, why you?
Being sequestered so much with Covid 19, many of us, in our lives have had occasion to think or say this. Why do bad things happen to good people? I’ll give you and example in my family.
On January 11, 1982 my cousin, Robin Bishop was on her way from Los Angeles, California to her home in Las Vegas Nevada. She was 23. On the way, as she passed through Barstow California, she was pulled over by a California Highway Patrolman (George Gwaltney) who raped then murdered her. Why would a loving God allow this to happen to a sweet innocent young girl as my cousin?
Consider the recent evil men in our history and the deaths they caused:
Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) 50 million
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) 20 million
Pol Pot (1925-1998) 2 million
Heinrich Himmler (1900-1945) 6 million
Saddam Hussein (1937-2006) 2 million
Idi Amin (1952-2003) 500,000
Clearly there is evil in the world. However, many deaths of really good people occur due to disease, or accidents where evil isn’t present. I should also include physical abuse, depression, famine etc. There is a long list.
Why so much suffering? Shouldn’t we be able to avoid this? Surly God must have another solution in which suffering can be avoided?
To answer this question, I need to take you back in time just a little. Back – way back in fact. We were all gathered in what you could call a grand council. This is before we came to earth. We were meeting with our Heavenly Father to decide what our life here would be like. There were two plans presented. One by Satan whereby he promised to redeem all mankind. In order to do this, we would not have what you would call agency – the freedom to choose. In this world everyone would do the right thing. We would treat each other correctly, no war, murder, robbery, rape etc. (my cousin Robin would still be alive). And, by the way – Satan said that all of the glory would go to him.
The second plan was presented by Jesus Christ. In His plan our Heavenly Father would provide a Savior for us. He would be Jesus Christ. Jesus promised that He would come down to earth, live a perfect life, then allow himself to be crucified unto death. Oh – one other thing. Just before He was crucified, He would allow all of the pain, suffering, illness, depression etc. to be placed upon His shoulders. This would take place in the garden of Gethsemane. Also, in this plan we would be allowed to have our own agency – that is the freedom to choose. Heavenly Father knew that we would make mistakes, the Saviors crucifixion would allow us to repent for those mistakes so that we would qualify to return to heaven to live with Him. Out Saviors atonement will allow us to bridge the gap between the perfection we can accomplish in this life and the perfection that God requires of us in order for us to return to live with him. Without our Savior’s atonement we would indeed be lost.
We all listened to both of the plans. Satan’s seemed easy peasy. No pain. On the other hand, the plan that Jesus put forth wasn’t easy for him. Could He really deliver on all of the things that He promised?
There was a vote taken and 1/3 of us voted for Satan’s plan. The rest of us voted for the plan that Jesus put forth. Those who voted for this plan are, were, or will be on the earth to live out our lives. The other 1/3 work with Satan to promote his agenda.
So – agency was important to us. We knew that there would be consequences to allowing all of us to have agency. Some would choose poorly. We may not have realized how poorly some of those choices would be, and how much suffering there would be, but here we are with our agency.
Why was agency so important to us? Why did we want to come here anyway when bad things could happen to us? That takes me back to the beginning – why me, why you?
Let me ask this. When your life is all roses – what do you learn? How much do you grow? When times are tough what do you learn?
To illustrate: When I was 13, I went with the Boy Scout troop I was in to Mount Tamalpais to play a game called capture the flag. When I got home my mom looked at me and said “you’re filthy – go take a bath”. I did. That’s when I learned I had a severe reaction to poison oak. I broke out all over my body. All over. Yes, everywhere. For two weeks I was miserable to say the least. I did learn a couple of things though. I learned not to scratch were it itched. I also learned patience. Now that lesson has helped me throughout my life.
One other thing. God has a vastly different perspective of life and time than most of us realize. To Him death is not the end – it’s just another door. Our life here is all about growing and gaining wisdom, making mistakes and repenting for them. We are here to prepare ourselves for the next big adventure. Also – when evil is done to us by others – our blood cries to the Lord – this gives Him the reason to deal with bad people in an appropriate manner.
Thanks for reading,
Happy New Year,
Paul
