If There's A God, Why Do Bad Things Happen?

We all have had experiences or have known good people who have had bad things happen to the. Often the question arises, If there is a God, why would He let this happen? Sometimes it's not even spoken, but people will get angry, frustrated, and resentful. Those feelings can put a shadow over your life, and you might not even realize it. I go into the reasons that God is not responsible for all of what happens on Earth. We have that option of free will. If you have some painful times this might help.

Transcript

Aloha.

I'm Reverend Cindy Palos and I wanted to talk about a subject that I think really can go pretty deeply into our heart and our soul and our basic feeling and outlook on life.

I was sitting in meditation and it occurred to me how over the last few years and when I've seen what has happened with the economy and houses prices going up and people losing money and jobs and also what's happened of course with COVID and the war and the Ukraine.

I mean of course all of life we have these challenges but I think many people including maybe the hidden part of myself has been wondering if life is really fair.

Now it's not the kind of thing you really talk about especially if you're a minister and talk all the time about positive thinking and all the blessings but there is this part that's deep in ourselves that really thinks that we deserve better sometimes.

I don't know how else to say it.

I hope you know what I'm talking about.

Sometimes we just think well this doesn't seem fair and then hopefully that part of your soul or that part that you listen to taps you on the shoulder and says um you know what about all the blessings?

What about all the good things?

But then there are a lot of people who do resent this and resent God.

In fact use that as an excuse for being angry at life and angry at God and angry at the world when painful things happen.

This question comes up again and again.

I mean if you're a minister you know this.

If you're a doctor you probably hear that question all the time.

How could God let this happen?

When you see a parent that's lost a child,

When you see the pain suffering that's going on in Ukraine,

So many in the world are going how can this happen?

This isn't fair.

I wrote a poem about it this morning.

Is life fair?

I heard myself say.

So many are hurt,

So many in despair each day.

How could God let this be?

If he or she is there shouldn't there be more mercy?

But how can we judge?

How can we understand?

It's up to the God in us to help our fellow man.

And we can't judge God for what people create.

This life's what we make and we create our own fate.

Life is life and with our time here we can mirror something divine or we can see the misery and do our best to ease the burdens and help others to be free.

Is life fair?

Can it be?

Who can see the scales of karma and the lessons that we need?

We create this world we make.

It's up to us to perceive the way to make our life great.

And in the times we meditate and pray we can ask for more love and light to help us along the way.

Life is and if we look we might just see a miracle,

A blessing,

A gift.

This existence is what we choose to perceive.

Now in every painful situation there can be heartbreak but there also can be your heart broken open.

It's said so often now I hate to say it almost because it's become a cliche.

But when your heart breaks open more light comes in.

And sometimes more people can relate to that and help you and reach out because we're all just human here trying to make the best of this spirit and form.

But God gives us this life.

God is not the one that chooses how we live each day.

We choose how we want to live and we can choose to work for God's will and serve or we can just do what we wish to do with the time we've been given here.

You know you're born this date,

You die this date,

What did you do in between?

And I think that during some of these difficult times we've been having it's almost difficult to say that maybe more people are doing more good,

That maybe more people are helping more people,

That we're being called to pray more,

Maybe we're being a little kinder.

And it's sad that we have to go through hard times to make that happen.

But throughout history,

The history of mankind or humankind,

This is the way that it's worked.

And unfortunately this planet works by conflict and learning and lessons and when we are just comfortable in that comfort zone,

Sometimes we don't bring out that other higher part of ourselves because we don't see the need for it.

But we're given free will.

What a gift that is,

Right?

We have this amazing energy field where you're born as part of the infinite light and infinite love of God.

And there are some people who get upset when I say the word God,

Please.

It does bother me when people get very upset because I use the word God.

I use the word God because that's the word that's generally used for the ultimate source,

The creator.

Perhaps the creator might be a better word to use.

For we are co-creators in life because we have that element,

That spark of the infinite within us.

We have that love,

That unconditional love which was from the source of our love within us.

So we can resent things we've gone through.

You know what?

It's natural.

And when I realized myself this morning that I was resenting some of the things that had happened.

I had had a very difficult year last year.

My beautiful house I lived in was sold and I couldn't find a place to live so I ended up going from a gorgeous four-bedroom house with a pool and a gated community to a small cottage,

A 1,

000-feet cottage,

For the same price I was paying for this very beautiful estate.

My significant other had a heart attack and literally died for 20 minutes,

Came back and that was a miracle and a blessing.

But at the same time I've had to take on a huge burden of the amount of work because he's no longer able to.

So I've been carrying a much heavier load.

And I realized that part of me was inner anger.

There was inner anger within myself about this.

And when you meditate,

If you go deep inside,

You'll find that some of these things can have residual effects.

And they really need to be accepted,

Rooted out,

Explored.

And you need to find out if it's affecting your perspective and your attitude towards life.

And that's where forgiveness comes in and understanding and all the tools we learn when we meditate and explore within ourselves.

I thank God every day for my life.

I thank God for so many things.

Yet sometimes when we go through some very hard things in life,

Some of those things are going to create a deep residual impression.

Sometimes it's called PTSD.

It can create a PTSD because part of that is the after effects of what happens.

So it's up to us to find out what we can do to clear ourselves from any of that anger,

Resentment,

Frustration.

And to do the best we can do as humans to really help others who also are going through this.

Because you know what?

We're all connected.

We really are all one in spirit.

So the more we see other people helping,

The more we find people who are good people doing good things,

The more we understand that this is going on in the world.

We're not just a victim of life.

Then we can really start to work,

To do positive work and take those lessons we've learned and put them to work and help others who are going through hard times.

I really pray that we all get to really explore this because if you're on this path and you use the word God and you believe in God,

You're going to hear many people come to you if you even bring up the word God and say,

Well then why does God allow these things to happen?

This has been the question throughout time really.

Throughout every war,

Throughout many difficult times for people.

And that's where you have to be able to come up with your own answer and that comes back to you understanding.

Understanding the Creator.

Understanding that God didn't do these things to people.

We're here on this planet with the gift of life,

Gift of love,

Gift of light.

We can create as a Creator did because we're co-creators and we have been given free will and that means God does not step in.

Does it mean we can't pray to God?

Of course not.

We can pray to God.

I pray to God every day and I have had prayers come true and miracles happen and I have seen prayers that were not answered.

It doesn't mean God is a cruel,

Angry person punishing us.

It doesn't mean the person whose prayers didn't come through was doing anything wrong.

We can't see the bigger picture.

We can't understand a soul's karma.

We can't understand a nation's or the world's karma.

It's much bigger than us.

So that's where we learn to have faith,

To pray,

To meditate,

To reach out to each other in times to try to understand and to be the best person we can to reflect the divine.

The divine that's beyond definition and I do pray that that gift,

That beautiful gift of understanding and having that faith and the gift of forgiveness all can work for you in your life.

God bless you always.

Reviews

Very helpful & great guidance for feelings we all have from time to time. God bless you. 😇

I really needed this right now & love the poem. Thank you.

A beautiful perspective and a more beautiful poem. Thank you Reverend Cindy. 🙏🏼💗

Wonderful talk. I love that you include God in your talks. It’s part of what resonates with me. Thank you for spreading the word. 🙏🏼💖