Have you ever wondered how close to disaster you might be at any given time? We hear stories all the time of how life can change in a minute.
October 18, Eagle will be offering a class called Questions Worth Asking. Each week, Sari and I will take a question that our culture seems to be asking and answer it from a biblical worldview.
One of the weeks, we will be looking at the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s a question that challenges God’s goodness and power—His ability or willingness to stop bad things from happening.
But we live in a fallen, sinful world. Maybe the question we should be asking is, why don’t more bad things happen to all people?
How many times has God stepped in and stopped a bad thing from happening, and we weren’t even aware of it?
I contemplated this at an Indiana Fever game a few weeks ago. It was the second-to-last game of the season. They were playing horribly, getting blown out, and before the halftime rush to the concession stands, my son, daughter-in-law, and I headed down for some food.
We got to the counter kiosk to punch in our orders. Mara ordered pizza. Michael ordered the chicken tenders meal. I had just punch in a pretzel for Sari when something caught my eye.
In the doorway to the back room of the concession stand, a man had picked up a pan full of fresh-baked—maybe just heated-up—pretzels. Five or six of them slid off the top of the pan and fell on the floor.
He proceeded to set the pan on the floor, pick up the fallen pretzels, PLACE THEM BACK IN THE PAN, and carry them to the warmer on the counter to hand out to customers like me.
Once the shock of what we had just witnessed wore off, we decided to delete that order and go somewhere else.
Had I not looked up when I did, I would have never witnessed what had happened. The next pretzel taken out of that warmer could have been handed to me, and I would have handed it to Sari—totally unaware that it had been lying on the back-room floor.
Longer than the five-second rule!
Disaster averted.
And a thought was planted in my mind: Thank you, Jesus, for having me look up when I did.
How many times does God protect us when we don’t even know it?
How many times does He cause a delay or an inconvenience that allows us to miss a bad experience? How many times are we prompted or nudged in our spirit to take a different route or look up at just the right time?
God is protecting us when we don’t even know it.
Now, I know that sometimes He allows the bad thing to happen. Sometimes He doesn’t change our course. Sometimes He doesn’t cause us to look up, and we have to face the unpleasantness.
Psalm 121:7-8 says, “The LORD will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life; the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”
We need to thank God for all those times He protected us without our ever knowing it.
Psalm 34:7 says, “The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.”
And when He allows us to walk through the hard things, He delivers us. Remember, He can only deliver us if we are in need of delivering. Sometimes going through the hard is for our good.
So maybe the question isn’t only, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
Maybe we should also ask, “How many bad things has God protected us from that we will never know about?”
We may never know how many times God caused us to look up, slowed us down, changed our plans, or simply put us in the right place at the right time.
But we can know this: God is watching over us, even when we aren’t watching for Him.
So today, thank Him—not only for the times He has delivered you from the things you knew about, but also for the countless times He protected you from things you never knew were coming.
And maybe the next time life is delayed, inconvenienced, or doesn’t go according to plan, instead of asking, “Why is this happening to me?” we should pause and wonder, “What might God be protecting me from?”
Why do bad things happen to good people? Why don’t more bad things happen to all people?
Come October 18 and find out.
(Actually, we will be tackling this question on November 1—but why wait?)
Epilogue: I did leave feedback on the Gainbridge Concession website and received a very quick reply from a very nice lady who couldn’t apologize enough, gave me her personal phone number and said to call her next time we come to the arena and she will guarantee a better experience and great meal!
Ted Harris
Associate Pastor