Why do bad things happen to good people?
It’s an age-old question that philosophers, theologians, and average Americans like you and me have tried to answer for centuries. Ponderance about theodicy, the vindication of God’s goodness despite the existence of evil, manifests even more prominently in the wake of tragedies like the recent shooting at an Allen, Texas outlet mall that left eight dead and at least seven others wounded.
For Christians, the deaths of eight legally innocent people are a grave reminder that, as Ephesians 6:12 states, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Deranged and demonic people doing deranged and demonic acts are something Christians are warned to expect in a world controlled by evil. Moments of apparent hopelessness like this one are soothed by the promise of an eternal end to death, suffering, and mourning. The fact that God himself plans to wipe away our tears brings a certain kind of peace to worried and weary souls.
For the ruling class, however, shootings like this one are terrifying because they are an enigma. In a desperate plea to satiate their endless hopelessness, leftists try to blame life’s trials and tribulations on what they claim to be the biggest problems society has to offer.
Despite the fact that these “threats” are temporary and fall short during any level of scrutiny, leftists continually invoke sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and other labels to interpret adversity.
False Gods
If you do not understand the inherent presence of sin in the world, someone being possessed by an evil so grim that he will maliciously end lives boggles minds and souls.
Followers of Christ certainly don’t know all the specifics on why a 33-year-old man decided to gun down unsuspecting families over the weekend. We do, however, have a moral framework that rationalizes seemingly irrational behavior and grants us unwavering hope all at the same time.
The same cannot be said for the political left and their allies in the corporate media who put blind faith in the things of the world to decipher disaster.
That’s why, mere hours after the Allen shooting, unnamed sources and eager corporate media outlets rushed to link the Hispanic gunman to “white supremacy.” That point made zero sense from the beginning but media mouthpieces latched onto it like a drug.
While there’s no doubt that the “white supremacy” narrative certainly creates political benefits for the left, it doesn’t elucidate the matter at hand. If racism is what causes shooters to snap and half of the country or more is inherently “racist,” why aren’t there more shootings?
Idolizing false religions like race as the lens through which everything must be looked at will never explain why a Hispanic man opened fire in a predominantly white suburb. Understanding that evil has long crept its way into the crevices and cracks of human souls does.
Bad things happen to good people because Adam and Eve ushered in an era of turmoil. Every man, woman, and child who is born and lives in a broken world is afflicted by a spiritual war. If they aren’t fighting against evil forces, they are overcome by them.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by the revolting reactions offered by the left following the Nashville shooting at the Covenant School, the left’s scrambling to manipulate tragedies to blame their favorite political targets invites further evil to replace compassion.
Thoughts and Prayers
Leftism is a false religion that hampers not only a person’s ability to understand human suffering but also the remedy for our sorrows. Their visceral reaction to “thoughts and prayers” evidences this.
Every time tragedy strikes, social media pages are flooded with comments from the faithful promising to pray for the bodies, minds, and souls of those affected. Unfortunately, this sincere gesture is frequently met with angry squawking that “thoughts and prayers” are excuses for inaction that mean nothing. For people who understand that evil exists and calamity is inevitable, however, “thoughts and prayers” mean everything.
To reject the divine power of prayer is to sentence one’s soul and mind to the fear and anxieties about death that plague the sinful human condition.
We live in a broken world populated by broken people in need of a savior. No one can even begin to wrestle with the concept of the death of innocents until they understand that basic principle.
There is but one remedy for evil and its name isn’t anti-racism or gun control. It’s Jesus.
The burden of saving the world was lifted from our shoulders more than 2,000 years ago. That doesn’t mean we should opt for complacency in times of crisis but it also doesn’t mean we must rush to disarm ourselves of our best spiritual and physical defenses, as so many try to do after tragedy.
There is redemption and there is hope for those who want it. Let us pray that those weary, searching souls discover there is no fear in death if you live a life with Christ.
