Why Does God Let Bad Things Happen?

TODAY'S READING: Gen. 37, 38; Ps. 7; Luke

SCRIPTURE: Gen. 37:3-28
³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.

⁵ Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had: ⁷ We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”

⁸ His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.

⁹ Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

¹⁰ When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, “What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Sold by His Brothers

¹² Now his brothers had gone to graze their father’s flocks near Shechem, ¹³ and Israel said to Joseph, “As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them.”

“Very well,” he replied.

¹⁴ So he said to him, “Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me.” Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron.

When Joseph arrived at Shechem, ¹⁵ a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?”

¹⁶ He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

¹⁷ “They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’”

So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. ¹⁸ But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

¹⁹ “Here comes that dreamer!” they said to each other. ²⁰ “Come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we’ll see what comes of his dreams.”

²¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. “Let’s not take his life,” he said. ²² “Don’t shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don’t lay a hand on him.” Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.

²³ So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe—the richly ornamented robe he was wearing— ²⁴ and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.

²⁵ As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.

²⁶ Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed.

²⁸ So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.

OBSERVATION/APPLICATION: The other day I had a conversation with my son. He was moving and had his truck conk out on him after he loaded up. He did everything he could to fix it on his own because he had no money and had 3 of his young kids with him but nothing he did worked. He prayed, and asked the kids to pray and it sputtered to life for a few minutes, then conked out again. He asked me, why, if God is real, does he let things like this happen? Doesn't God care about his reputation? Is he so capricious as to abandon those who believe in and count on him to come through for them when they are in trouble? He had a lot of other good questions too. It does seem at times that God is indeed capricious in his dealings with man. The entire story of Joseph's life is very instructive in trying to find answers to such honest queries. Joseph was given dreams of greatness by God, he had faith in God, and yet he was treated abominably by his own brothers and sold into slavery. What happened to him after that was even worse. He was accused of a crime he didn't commit and spent 17 years of his life (the prime of his life at that) in prison! If anyone had reason to believe that God was unjust and unfair it was Joseph. But somehow, he maintained his faith in God through all of it. He was 30 when his circumstances finally started to get better. He actually said that everything, even all the evil events, that had happened to him God meant for good! Now that is an amazing statement! I believe that the only way that Joseph could have made that statement was to have been processing all the events in his life through his relationship with God. If he had not been a praying man, seeking understanding about his life from God, I think he would have been disillusioned, bitter, and wallowing in "victimhood". It is human nature to do so. Without God, that is the only way we process all the "crap" of life that happens to us. It is only God that can give us a different, more positive perspective. It is only he who can use trouble to improve our character and make us better people. Without God, trouble an injustice only make us worse people; more cynical, faithless, bitter, angry, suspicious and mistrustful of others and more self-absorbed and self-protective. I don't have all the answers as to why God chooses to let so many bad things happen as a means of testing us or improving us. I would like him to use different means myself. But Joseph's story at least gives us some insight into how to handle trouble. We simply must keep in contact with God through prayer and trust that he will at some point make clear to us the purpose for what happens to us.

PRAYER: Father, I trust you. I have had years of experience that have proven to me that I can trust you even when horrible, unfair and unjust things happen to me. Everything evil in my life, you have turned to good eventually. I still don't understand why things have to work this way but I am glad that I can trust you through it all. I pray you will help my son, and others, to come to a trusting faith in you as well, especially through difficult times. In Jesus' Name, Amen.