2 Kings 4:1
A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
Why do bad things happen to good people? I am sure you have asked that question at one time or another. The other common question I have heard asked especially when someone dies is “Why does God take the good people quickly and leave the bad ones?” Our key verse presents a scenario that would lead us to ask such questions. A prophet has died and from the look of things, he died unexpectedly because he left his wife in debt and now the creditors are coming to enslave his two sons until the debt is paid. Why would God allow such a bad thing to happen to this family? Wasn’t this man serving God? After all, don’t we usually say that if you take care of God’s business then he will take care of your business? Well, that does not seem to be the case here.
We often believe that because we are serving God then we will not encounter problems and even disasters just like this one. That is not true. Think about men like John the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus. You would expect that maybe he would end up being one of his disciples, right? The guy was beheaded, Jesus did nothing to save him. What about Stephen, a man full of the Holy Spirit and serving God diligently? He was stoned to death.
Bad things will happen to good people but that does not mean that God has abandoned them nor has he forgotten them. The Bible says that all things work together for good to those that love God and are called according to his purpose. You may ask, what good can come out of such a scenario and many others we encounter especially where death or things like rape occur?
Some things are hard to comprehend but these two things always encourage me and keep me in check
One is to know and believe that God is just and in everything he allows to happen he is just because he sees everything even the hearts and the thoughts of men.
The second is that he loves me and all things will work for my good because he has a good plan for my life.
So yes, some things are too hard and painful for us to understand because we are limited in our understanding, but we stand on that which we understand and know no matter what, and that is this; God is good all the time and all the time God is good and that’s his nature. AMEN.
