Why does God allow bad things to happen?

I always stayed away from religious discussions before I was born again.

However since I became born again, I have been more open to listening to the questions of those that are searching.

The most common question that is withholding people from putting their hearts at the cross is "Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?"

This is generally in reference to the violence in South Africa and worldwide. The consensus is that if God is almighty and powerful, He should be able to stop the baddies in their tracks. If He loves us so much, why does He not listen to our prayers?

These are some of the misperceptions that cause unbelief amongst those that are yet to be born again.

I have spent a lot of time praying and looking for the answers and finally the Holy Spirit has answered my questions and I want to relay them to you in my own humble way.

God wants to prosper and not to harm us.

As a born again individual, we have the Holy Spirit as our Comforter and Protector whenever we may need Him. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman and only comes into our hearts when we invite Him in. When He is present no harm will come our way.

Unfortunately we do not always walk with the Holy Spirit inside us and we allow satan to steal from and rob us and destroy what is ours, which is his way of causing distrust and boy, is he good at it!

It is very much like a parent/child relationship where your kids make you angry but you still love them.

Imagine your teenagers going to wild parties where you are not invited to and cannot protect them and then they get wild drunk and do things that they should not which cause them harm. It is the same in our Father/child relationship with God.

Think about it: we do stuff that chases the Spirit out, we do not repent and then expect God to protect us when we are in a place we should not be? (Be that a physical / emotional / spiritual place).

The only thing you can do is to be sure to walk with the Spirit at all times (takes practice!), ask, believe and receive and be thankful.

Sowing and reaping

Churches speak about tithing all the time. Tithing is when we bring the first 10% of our earnings to God. That money belongs to God, but He wants to see that we are faithful, that is why He does not just keep His 10%

Everything we have belongs to God and when we give, we are richly blessed.

Besides tithing there are other ways for us to give:

Offering – when we give money over and above the tithe

Sowing – when you give of your time, money or belongings

We often give money and hope the church appropriates the money correctly and that is the last thought we give the matter.

The spirit in which we give is almost more important than what we actually give. You must give not so that you can receive, but knowing that your seed will be blessed and used to further God’s Kingdom.

Your fruit will be returned to you and God will meet you at your point of need. For instance, He may not give you money to join a medical aid, but He will keep you healthy so that you will not need a medical aid.

Miracles

When people spoke of miracles, my logic used to protest – it is coincidence, it would have happened that way either way; it is the positive thoughts and law of attraction… Let us face it, we will find an explanation for everything if we think about it hard enough.

The truth is that the way God made our minds to be so enquiring and intelligent in itself is a miracle – can you even try to make man with body, mind and soul, so intricate and involved and yet so perfect?

Yes, I have seen absolute miracles in my life.

After believing for 10 years that I have failed matric, I found out that despite all the odds against me, I have in fact passed! Praise God!

My little boy was brought back from death when he was about 3 and half years old, before we were born again. John-Ross was sick with flu, which caused him to choke on a piece of food. His eyes rolled back in his head and he became unconscious. Wade tried to revive him with CPR, but it did not work. The little boy was lying on the floor, blue in the face from lack of oxygen to the brain. We thought we had lost him when we started praying to God – amazing how we put Him in charge of our lives when we have no other option. Suddenly, John-Ross sat up weakly and vomited, the piece of food dislodged. He has been fine ever since with no damage to his brain or any other part of his body.

So many prayers of healing have been answered in our lives, one of the most recent being little Debbie, when she came down with something. At first she was very tired and sleepy and then developed a fever. We had only enough money for food, but she became sicker with her temperature rising rapidly and she started vomiting. She did not eat for about 3 days. We were by her bedside, praying and trying to find out what was wrong with her. She had no pain, but people said that meningitis was doing the rounds. Meningitis is a disease that causes infection of the meninges, the thin lining that surrounds the brain and the spinal cord and could cause death.

On the third day she was even more weak and sleepy and we decided to stop the lip service of praying, but not putting our trust in God. We took our last bit of money and took her for a check-up. She had an ear infection and received antibiotics. When she arrived back home she was much better already, but she had not had her medicine yet! God wanted to see our faith and because we obeyed, he saved our baby and blessed our finances!

Speaking of financial blessings, God uses people to be a financial blessing unto you. Money does not necessarily fall out of the sky, but our God is super-natural!

We like to meditate on Ephesians 3: 20 daily: “Now glory be to God who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of – infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts or hopes. ”

Another miracle happened when we were unable to pay our rent, it was already past due and the proprietor called on the Saturday to say that it had to be paid by the Monday. We had no money at all, but we spoke in faith when we said: “No problem, we will have money on Monday. ”

On Monday Wade called a client to discuss something when she said the following: “Wade, I hope I did not offend you, but I deposited R3000 into your bank account to use as you wish. ” This lady had no idea about our situation, but when God spoke to her she acted and she will be richly blessed for that.

We had other blessings happen of physical nature, such as food and clothing and toys for the children. Our aim is to become a blessing unto others and especially to those who have blessed us.

I always felt very ashamed of accepting blessings for fear that it may inconvenience those who bless us. God has since revealed to me that when others bless us, they will be blessed in turn.

More at Paths of Righteousness

Finding your purpose

Three days ago, He told me to write this book and I have been at work ever since. To say that I am exhausted is an understatement, but I also feel exhilarated as one does when you are certain that you are doing what He wants you to do.

Wade and I have a wonderful joint relationship with God, where He allows us to take turns to minister to one another. We both have volatile personalities and thankfully, God has attuned us in such a way that when the one is down, the other is up and vice versa. When we are running on even keel, we both do at least. We are however always in sync and understand that the up-and-down situation is for our benefit. It would be a disaster if we were both miserable at once!

Such is our devotional life too. God allows one to take a step further first in order to lead the other up the staircase to spiritual maturity, one step at a time. He let us us take turns all the time. I believe this is important so that we may learn the processes in order to teach others.

I was blessed in being given the first step when we were baptized in the Holy Spirit. There was no overpowering force or bright light or angels singing hymns. There was simply a peace that transcends all and I just knew that the Holy Spirit was there. Since then I could simply ask for His presence and He would be there.

The same applies to God speaking to us. I do not hear His voice, I just know in my heart and in my mind that He has spoken and that He has kissed His baby.

It was during prayer that He told me to write this book. My mind was very far away from books, in fact I had given up on the idea entirely. I was halfway through a sentence, praying and I just stopped and I knew.

How to read your Biblle and pray

We open our time of devotion with a short prayer to firstly ask God for forgiveness for our sins and to purify our hearts so that they may be open to receive the Holy Spirit.

We ask that the Holy Spirit will guide us while we read the Word of God and that we may receive the message God has in store for us.

I find the Living Bible an easy read, although I read Psalm 23 from the Revised Standard – it is just so beautifully written. We have a lovely 4-in-1 Bible with the King James, Modern Language, Living Bible and Revised Standard translation.

When we first started reading the Bible, we started with Psalm 23 to open up our time of devotion daily. We would then read another Psalm, working systematically from the beginning of Psalms, to the end. We also read a daily Proverb – there is so much wisdom and practical lessons in Proverbs.

We then close in prayer again, this time with a much longer prayer, covering various aspects, in this order:

Thanks – we thank God for His forgiveness and grace, for the message we received in the Word of God and anything else we are thankful for.

Intercession – we pray for our family and friends or anyone else who needs prayer that we know of.

Personal – we pray for any issues in our lives.

Praise – we praise God. A great man of God said something very true on television the other day: “When the praise goes up, the blessing have got to come down!”

Your prayers will evolve as you grow up in the spirit and you will start finding more to say to Him and plenty to praise Him for.

Starting your journey with God

I always like to have a clear-cut plan of action to follow in everything I do and I will try to give you some ideas on things that work for me.

- Attend church

Find a church that touches you, even if you have to go around to a few churches before you find the one that does it for you spiritually. If this book ‘does it for you’ – Pentecostal is the way to go!

- Devotion

Make time daily to read your Bible and pray.

- Gratitude List

Keep a list where you can write things daily about what you are grateful for or answered prayers.

Overcoming worldly pleasures

I was born again, but what happened to my obsession with the earthly pleasures?

Well, a miracle happened and I actually never thought about the sins again – or at least the urge to commit the sins, left me. It simply went away, never to return. I will tell you the logic behind that.

During the exodus to the Promised Land, in the time of the Wilderness, God told Moses to reveal the 10 Commandments to the people and called it the Laws.

Later on however He said that the most important law is that “You shall love the Father with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbour as yourself”. When you do that, you will be under God’s grace and the other laws will be so much easier to uphold.

You can not break the commandments if you love the Lord God with all your heart, mind and soul and your neighbour as yourself and the desire will simply leave you.

Promised land

We are in a wilderness before we become born again, although it feels like Egypt, after all there is a lot of good food and happiness. What we do not realize is that that food is in fact not good for us at all. That food is our sins.

When we are in the wilderness, God still has mercy upon us. During our journey through the wilderness in our life, God always supplied us with manna – we always had food to eat and a warm bed to sleep in.

That is not God’s full plan for your life though; He has so much more in store for you and that is why He has to prepare your heart for greater things. He has to make you obedient and faithful so that you may know to always rely on Him alone.

As soon as you have made the decision to be obedient and always seek the Kingdom of God first, the Promised Land shall follow.

Understanding the Bible

Soon, I too became born again and I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, getting understanding of what I thought was another cliché. The Holy Spirit brings you wisdom – not the kind that will make you pass all your grades – but a deeper wisdom that makes you understand the things of the spirit of God and His Divine plan for your life.

It also seems to act as the golden key, which unlocks our prayers and the messages in the Word of God.

The message that has been most valuable so far in our family’s journey with God came out of the children’s Bible. There are so many symbolical parallels between our life story and the story of Moses who led the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land.

At first, the Lord commanded Moses to lead the Israelites through the Red Sea – He dried up the ocean and parted the waves so that the Israelites could walk through and then He closed the waves again so the enemy nation would be destroyed.

This is how He makes ways for us when there seems to be no way and He fights the enemy on our behalf.

Like the Israelites, sometimes we have to go into the wilderness before we get to the Promised Land, but we want as little inconvenience as possible, hence we gripe and moan, saying that Egypt was much better with better food.

God supplies us with manna, even when we are disobedient and we do not trust in Him. We still complain as manna is not good enough, we want the good food.

Meanwhile, we go around in circles for forty years, complaining and eating manna when the Promised Land is in fact only 11 days away. That is all God intended for the Israelites – He only wanted them to be in the wilderness for 11 days before entering the Promised Land. Their disobedience cost them forty years in the desert.

This story is also symbolic of the path of a new Christian. We first have to defeat the enemy (sin) by going through the Red Sea (being baptized in the Holy Spirit). We then enter the Wilderness (the transition phase where we miss our old sinful lives) where our obedience and faith is tested before we enter the Promised Land.

Everlasting peace is what I wanted

Wade has this habit of getting up in the early hours of the morning when it is still dark and then he goes to work and I really do not like to wake up all alone. I on the other hand like to lie in on a Saturday morning and on this particular Saturday morning I was awake when he got up and went into the kids’ room. I knew that they were watching television, so I got up to go see what he was doing. There he was sitting on my daughter’s tiny little bed, reading the Bible. I felt sorry for him and told him to come read in our room.

Wade is very good at taking advantage of every opportunity and asked me if he could read aloud to me – how could I say no? I listened with curious interest and afterwards Wade asked if he could read anything else to me. The only thing I could quote was Psalm 23 and not to be outdone, I asked him to read that.

Psalm 23 – A Psalm of David

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;

He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside still waters;

He restores my soul

He leads me in paths of righteousness

For His name’s sake

Even though I walk through the valley

Of the shadow of death

I fear no evil;

For thou art with me

Thy rod and thy staff,

They comfort me.

Thou preparest a table before me

In the presence of my enemies;

Thou annointest my head with oil,

My cup overflows.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me

All the days of my life;

And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

This scripture really fills me with such peace. Just imagine those green pastures and the still waters – so beautiful in comparison to my life, so restful. So far away from the hustle-bustle of life and all the stress of trying to keep head above water.

Christianity - what is it really?

That's what I asked myself.

I was a very angry person, having been hurt and disappointed so many times in my life. I trusted nobody. The thing is that we mirror what we see in others, especially when we are hurting. Therefore, when we do not trust someone, we start acting in an untrustworthy manner, so I became untrustworthy. Others’ happiness went right of my list of priorities and I started finding ways in which I could hurt them before they hurt me.

For years I never attended any church services and hardly acknowledged God, except in a blasphemous context. Sin became second nature to me, so much so that I stopped feeling guilty. How do you uphold the 10 commandments?

Wade has ‘tried’ the Christian walk a number of times, been to various churches, but it seemed he never really found the answers he was looking for. He has an addictive personality, which means that he throws all of himself into each new project he starts and this time I sensed that this project was going to be a life-long one. It scared me as at the time I was looking for gratification and meaning in very different places and I was not prepared to give that up nor did I know how to. I was also not prepared to lose Wade and I am ashamed to say that I was trying to distract him with what I was busy with. I remember once praying to God that Wade would rather stop trying to draw closer to God – that is sick!

Wade did not push me to join him in devotion, but I felt the need to explain to him that it would be pointless to give my life to God unless I can give it all to Him and I was just not prepared to do it. Wade respected my decision, but kept praying for me.

At that point in time my opinion was that there are so many “Christians” out there living as they wish and singing Hallelujahs in church as though they are the holy angels. I did not want to be a hypocrite.