Bad things happen to good people

[Rosie]

Mr W wants for us all to have something to share in bible class tomorrow about a time when something was bad for us but then God turned it into good.  He wants for us to be able to know that bad things happen to good people because God wants to make bad become good.  I don't know.  Do you think that maybe bad things happen to good people only because maybe God is looking at somebody else and not paying attention to you?
Me and Mali were talking about why would God make it so Jesus had to die for him to forgive us?  I don't like it when I got to prove how he thinks instead of how I think cause if you think to much then God stops making sense. 
Why do you think God made it so Jesus had to get killed how he did?  Don't that make you think like what the heck?

[Addy]

There's a lot of things that are hard to understand.  It always bothers me to read about Jesus being in the Garden and praying.  How do you let someone you love sweat blood?  That always makes me feel sad and guilty. 

[Kim]

If you go through the Old Testament, you'll see that people made sacrifices to God, sheep, goats, oxen to honor God and for atonement.  In the spirit of that, a sacrifice made for our sins had to be greater and had to be a perfect offering.  Who was greater or more perfect than God made man, Jesus?  Jesus sacrificed himself willingly to atone for our sins.
Does this make sense?  Not to my human mind it doesn't but many things don't make sense to  my human mind.  It doesn't mean it isn't so or that it isn't without merit.
I think bad things sometimes happen to good people because things happen in life that aren't the result of good or evil, they just happen.  When the bad things happen we can choose to find the good or we can wallow in the bad.  That's our free choice in action.  I believe God will be there either way.  He will either help you find the good or he will sit with you while you wallow and softly encourage you to move on. 

[quinn]

Rosie, I agree with what your mom said. Smart lady there.
What I was taught about bad things happening to good people is just as I don't, as a parent, protect my kids from all the bad because I want them to learn and grow, God doesn't protect us, His children, from all the bad because He wants us to learn and grow.
If God has a plan for all of us, I don't see how it would be possible for Him to be looking in another direction and not know what's happening to us. He knows before it happens. For God it's like going to a test with the answer key. He knows all the answers before we know the questions.
When I was young I made the mistake of looking for love in the wrong way and found myself pregnant. I was a pregnant teen with extremely conservative parents. I wasn't supposed to be thinking about sex let alone having it. I thought my world had ended. I thought that was the worst thing that could ever happen. I prayed to God to take it away. I thought I got pregnant because God hated me and was punishing me. I really wasn't a bad person so why was God doing this to me? My parents reacted how I expected they would. It was a very difficult time for me. Over and over again I cried why. Then my very wise grandmother told me God can take anything and make it good. I held onto that thought and still do. Well here I am now with that 17 year old baby and she wasn't the worst thing to happen, she turned out to be the best thing.
You've had your fair share of bad in your young life Rosie but look where you're at now. God really can take anything and make it good.
Maybe that's the lesson of Jesus' crucifixion. No matter what we go have to go through, in the end, with God we will emerge victorious.

[Tatiana]

I think religion is on its way out because there is a lot of mean in religion. It's sadistic is what it is. I think spirituality will replace religion. People will start having actual relationships with the creator through his creations. The man on the cross and being beaten so badly he would have died of blood loss even if he hadn't been crucified is all horrible and cruel. Noah's ark. Killing all the animals? Pillars of Salt? Have you ever read JOB? It's like going to cinema for a horror show. There is more violence in the Bible than in any movie I've ever heard of. There's something very wrong about a creator being so barbaric towards his creations. I certainly take better care of the things I make and what I make doesn't even breath.

[Rosie]

I don't think religion is on the way out you know but a lot of bad stuff really does happen cause of religion.  It is like people get it all mixed up in there heads and forget how hate looks different from love so it is hating they are doing and not loving.  It makes me wonder what people really think God looks like when God is supposed to be love you know.
Lots of religion hates gay people when you know it is the gay couple who is looking more like God cause they are loving and not hating.
Some religion even puts down black people and did you know the Mormons do that some but now they say they don't so how does that even fit in with loving and hello Jesus was mostly likely brown skinned so closer to being black then white.
Some churches say my mom should of stayed married to her first husband who was so bad to her and Scarlette.  That didn't look like God but my mom and dad now are showing each other love and are mushbuckets even and they give me and my sisters lots of loving to so they are looking more like God.
You know to is I was made from sin but I was made from God like everybody else is so God is perfect and he loves me to and he don't sin so how does it make sense.
I don't know but religion gets twisted cause of the people who bring hate in it.

[charity]

Sometimes mankind judges more harshly than God does because God can see our hearts but man can't. 

[Addy]

I agree.  Mankind is harsh.  Instead of building each other up, we get some warped satisfaction in tearing others down.  
If we were God's homework project, he'd tear us down and start over again. 

[Tatiana]

Have you ever considered that religion has so much hatred in it because we're all in Hell and don't know it?

[Addy]

But that would mean new babies would be born in Hell.   That doesn't feel right. 

[mandy]

I don't know if this is what you're meaning but my Uncle had a heart attack and that was a bad thing when it happened but since it happened he's been doing good things. He lost a lot of weight and he quit smoking. He says he feels better than he's ever felt before so something bad turned out to be good.