Help for my friend

[icebreaker]

We just got a new person at my job and at first I didnt mention a thing to him and instead witness to him through my actions and well finally an opportunity came up and I told him I was a christian and he said he didnt like forced religion and I said to him I am here to be your friend and not preach to you all day. He said that was good and we didnt say anything else about it for at least a half hour or so and then he brought God up and then we began talking alot about God and he told me what all he believed and didnt believe in. He comes from a catholic family but his father has died, but has had alot of depressing things happen in his life like suicides and alot of deaths. He feels anger towards God and wants to know why God allows all the bad things in the world to happen like wars poverty etc... Please tell me something that I can say to him that will help him understand Gods will. I give God thanks that he has given me an opportunity to talk to him about Jesus and He is in my prayers. Please also put my friend in your prayers. Thanks

 

[sioleabha]

Perhaps you could find some advice in the book of Job? All of the rotten things that happened to him, he still had faith.

You could also remind your friend that God loved us enough to give us free will. Who would want to be a robot, forced to act the way God wants us to? Free will is a blessing, but it comes with the price that we (and others around us) choose to sin.

To put it another way, suppose you could magically force someone to love you, and to always do the things you like. The relationship wouldn't make you happy for very long, and it would be an abuse of the other person, right? We'd all prefer that people fall in love and start relationships by choice rather than force, wouldn't we? Even if it sometimes means we get hurt? Well, God agrees.

 

[sioleabha]

My husband just said that I make it seem that bad things only happen to non-believers. That's not what I mean, so allow me to clarify.

God gave all of mankind the choice to sin or not. We inevitably choose to sin, and because of that, we live in a fallen world where bad things happen. That doesn't mean that all bad things are our fault -- they're just the result of the fallen world which is a result of the original sin. The only way God could prevent that would be to force us all to be perfect, and he loves us too much for that.

 

[icebreaker]

I understood exactly what you meant on the first post I was thinking of that myself but thanks for clarifying it as well.