Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!

Can you name many great businessmen from history? Perhaps names like Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Jobs, and Musk come to mind?

How about great humanitarians? Perhaps names like Jesus, Mohamed, Siddhartha, Gandhi and Martin Luther King top the list?

Of these two groups, who would you prefer to have coffee with? I'm guessing most people will choose the latter... the humanitarians. 

We all would prefer to meet, dine, and chat with the humanitarians, yet so few of us strive to BE the humanitarians. Instead, we scrimp and claw for financial freedom and success. We yearn to reach the apex of stability and luxury, so we can put our feet up in comfort.

During the early days of the COVID Pandemic, a bizarre thing happened...  Mobs of frightened people rushed to their nearest market, clambering to clear the shelves. Did they want water, batteries, canned food, or matches? NO. They wanted TOILET PAPER. 

Panic stricken throngs, blinded by fear and selfishness, filled their carts with a year's supply of Charmin, leaving their neighbors with the unsavory option of wiping their backsides with leftover paper towels and napkins (which were soon gone, as well). They didn't give a thought to their immense selfishness -- their "Inconsiderate Meter" pinned squarely on "Me! Me! Mine!"

Human Nature.

But you are different. You have decided you will GIVE and not TAKE. As such, they find you, the "takers," and they take and take and take and take. They take what they need, what they don't need, and when they have enough, they demand "More! Give us more!" 

You turn your pockets out, "I have no more to give." 

"You don't care about us!" They cry. "You're selfish!"

Your limit reached, you are forced to set boundaries... that's when they turn on you. No longer are you the care-giver, the philanthropist, the saint; Now you are the greedy miser. The enemy.

"Wait!" you protest. "I gave you everything! Was that not enough for you to love me?"

"No." They say with a turn, "It was not."

Sadly, this is the world we live in. The world we've created. It is the antithesis of the message carried by every great thinker in the history of the world. 

If you were to have coffee with MLK, Gandhi, Buddha, Mohamed, or Jesus, and ask them the purpose of life, every one of them would give you the same answer: "Humility, selflessness, compassion."

To "take" is human. To "give" is divine.

Does God Let Bad Things Happen?

Why does God let bad things happen? Shouldn't a loving, benevolent God watch out for His children? If He's a God of good and justice, why doesn't He intervene and put a stop to evil and injustice?

I recently watched a video where a police officer was attacked by a mentally unstable transient man. The officer responded to a call from the property owner about the trespasser and approached the man, hoping to have a simple conversation. The suspect leaped to his feet, brandished a butcher knife, and stabbed the officer in the neck before he could get his hands out of his pockets.

The officer was a young man of 24, married with two young children, stabbed to death for no reason. 

Why did God let this happen?

The answer: Free Will.

To take it one step further, not only is this the answer to the question "Why does God let bad things happen," it's also the answer to the question, "Why are we here?"

Free Will.

It's the "Great Experiment": Create mankind, give each of them a moral compass, guidelines, and free will, then put them into a giant fishbowl and see how they treat one another.  Those who treat each other with kindness and grace are proven acceptable to enter into God's presence, those who don't... well, that's a hotly debated subject in many theological circles.  

It all hinges on "Free Will." We MUST be allowed to freely make decisions in order for this experiment to work. With decisions come consequences - sometimes good, sometimes bad. And bad consequences by bad actors means sometimes bad things happen to good people.

So, why is the afterlife such a secret?

If you were preparing for a final exam in college and the professor announced that the answers would be posted prior to the exam, giving everyone permission to look, you'd be a fool not to peek, especially since you have permission from the instructor.

What would happen? EVERYONE would ace the test! The instructor would have no gauge on whether anyone actually learned anything in his class and the whole of the student body would pass the course.

In the same sense, if God were to pull back the curtain and let us glimpse into the afterlife, we'd have all the answers to the test--there would be no true character litmus for humans.

When we lose someone dear to us, we're devastated, naturally, by the loss. As such, we view death as a horrible thing. In reality, death is the goal-- it's the finish line. It is where we ultimately want to be.

Death is not a bad thing, it's a blessing. But if we were to know this beyond any doubt, if the veil were pulled back, there would be no fear and no reason to continue on with the suffering of this life.

The mystery is integral to the test. It is what keeps us going until we cross the finish line.

Why does God let bad things happen to children?

Everyone has their own trials to overcome. Every person's trial is different.

The scriptures say, "To him who is given much, much will be expected. To him who is given little, little will be expected." So, someone like Bill Gates, who has live a long and fruitful life, will be held to a high level of expectation and much to answer for when he eventually crosses over.

Conversely, the child born in the slums of Mumbai, riddled with disease and poverty for the whole of their short life, has been given little. As such, little will be expected from them. They will be judged according to the light they shine and what they have done according to what they have been given.

Again, everyone has their own trials to overcome. The poor child in Mumbai has very different trials than a billionaire, but each has their own perilous road to travel.

On the other side, all things are equal, including the trials each person had to overcome to get there. 

Why does God let bad things happen to good people?

God doesn't want us to be good for Him, He wants us to be good to each other because it's the right thing to do. If He were to intervene on behalf of "good people," everyone would be good and there would be no "choice" (a la the final exam analogy). The experiment would fail.

Free Will. Everyone has it. Even the terrorists who murdered thousands on 9/11. Everyone.

The real test is how we respond when bad things happen. Will we respond with grace and kindness? Or will we fly a plane full of innocents into a building?

God is watching.