Where Is God When Bad Things Happen?

Bad things continue to happen in the world. People are aware of the mass shootings, terrorism, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, wars, parents killing their children, and children killing their parents. Those acts have left loved ones in pain, suffering, and grief.

Questions We All Have Asked

No matter who we are or what we believe, suffering raises the same ancient questions that most people have asked:

• Where is God when bad things happen?
• Where is hope?
• Where is meaning?
• Where is comfort?
• Where is God in all of this?

I have asked those questions like others. I don’t ask them as a theologian trying to solve a puzzle. I ask them as a person who has lived through nights that felt too long, and as someone who has sat beside others in their own long nights.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. However, from my own life, my ministry, and the stories people have trusted me with, I’ve come to understand those questions through a particular lens. You’re welcome to look through the lens with me, even if your own view lands somewhere else.

Individuals respond differently or not at all to the questions above. My own answer is shaped by faith, ministry, and lived experience. Yours may be shaped by something else entirely.

God Doesn’t Cause Bad Things to Happen

Based on my faith, God is not the author of tragedy. Much of the world’s suffering comes from human choices, natural consequences, or simply the reality of living in a world that is not yet whole. That understanding helps me separate the pain I experience from the character of God, whom I believe is good.

Harm often comes from human hands, not from divine ones.

I believe God does not cause bad things to happen. Instead, He allows bad things to happen for four main reasons.

1. To Prevent Worse Things From Happening

By faith, I believe God allows bad things to happen to prevent worse things from happening. Here is an example. As a parent, you watch your small child fall and skin his knee while running to stop his ball from rolling into a busy street. Truly, a skinned knee is a bad thing. However, because the child fell instead of running into ongoing traffic, his life was spared. A skinned knee is bad, but the outcome would have been worse if the child had run into the ongoing traffic.

2. For a Greater Good

A greater good does not excuse the hurt, but with my faith, I believe the scripture that says, “God works all things together for good” (Romans 8:28).

• It was bad that I didn't get the job I had set my heart on. It was good because the company went out of business, and I got a better job with another company.
• It was bad that a week before I was to get married, my fiancé called off the wedding. I later discovered that he was arrested for a serious crime that landed him in jail for many years. I went on to be happily married to someone else without a criminal record, rather than being married to a man in prison.
• It was bad that my first book was rejected many times. It was good that my book was rejected because I got a better deal with a more reputable company that agreed to publish all of my books.

My faith is the key to my believing that God brings a “greater good” out of what was bad.

3. Because of Free Will

In my ministry, I have come to understand free will. I understand that God created human beings with the freedom to choose. Therefore, our free will allows us to do both good and bad. The choice is ours to make: to love or hate, to build or break, or to heal or wound.

Everyone has free will to make moral choices. Much of the world’s pain flows from choices people make, not from divine intervention.

Sometimes pain comes simply from living in a world that is full of evil.

4. So God Can Get the Glory

It might be hard to understand that God wants to be glorified through our thoughts, words, and deeds. When we endure suffering and hardships, God gets the glory. In fact, there is a crown laid up in heaven for those who endure (Revelation 2:10).

I have been an ordained minister and Bible teacher for over 3o years, and I had the same questions others have asked. However, I rely on my faith and my knowledge of the Bible for my comfort during those trying times. My faith doesn’t erase the hurt, but it gives me something to hold on to.

My faith allows me to strongly believe that God is where He has always been. He does not disappear into the shadows when we suffer. Instead, God is always near to the broken-hearted (Psalm 34:18).

Wherever your own beliefs land, I hope you find comfort in knowing this: You are not alone in asking the above questions. Like the three Hebrew boys in the Book of Daniel, God will not always get us out of the fire, but He gets in the fire with us.

I cannot answer those questions with certainty for everyone. However, I can answer them based on my many years of Bible study, biblical research, theology, and having lived through long nights of suffering and walked beside others during their times of pain.

What I offer here is simply the way I’ve come to understand God’s nearness in suffering. I offer what I know for sure based on what has helped me through suffering, pain, and grief. I offer these answers with the realization that some might be skeptical. Know that what I offer is not to get people to believe what I believe. Remember, we all have free will.

Hopefully, something in this article will give you comfort when you are suffering. Wherever your beliefs are, I hope you find comfort in knowing you’re not alone in asking those questions. And no one has to walk through suffering without support, whether that support comes through faith, community, compassion, or the quiet strength that rises within us when we need it most.

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