Why Does God Allow Bad Things to Happen to Christians or His Children?

Faith712 said:

We live in a sinful world and are born sinners. However, once we accept Christ as our savior we are no longer sinful, we are without sin. So, if we are no longer sinful, why does God allow bad things to happen to us?

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I think it is helpful to distinguish between Fatherly discipline and wrathful judgement.

God cannot judge his people in any way because his people have already been judged in Jesus. When Christ drank the cup of God’s wrath he drank it to the dregs. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus and that means on the final day and every day until then. God is never judging you for your sin if you are in Christ.

That being said God is our Father and like every good Father he disciplines those whom he loves with the goal that they bear his image more and more and walk in his ways. Our Father uses everything even the difficulties of this curse world to shape us and discipline us into clinging to him more tightly. This is not him acting in wrath but in love for you. That is the difference.

tampasteve said:

Did they just not have enough faith? Did they just not pray enough? Did they commit some sin without repentance at some point in the past?

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I do see your point. First of all we are covered by Jesus's blood so that means our sins are washed away thus we were made righteous in His name, however that does not mean we are covered from bad things such as diseases happening to us. We still in a fallen world, and although we are born in spirit we still live in Adam's sinful flesh. If bad things didn't happen to Christians...we are not God we are still human. We need to remember that God no longer punishes those who are born in Spirit.
Why did God take the boy? Maybe I shouldn't answer this as I don't know what it feels like, but God made a judgement to takes this boys life, and if we are to believed who God is, all of His judgements are righteous.

For whatever reason God took the boy, it is not to punish His parents, for what reason He does it only God knows. I hope this little bit answers your question. It is harsh I know. I used to have the same problems, pray to the Lord, don't be afraid, and pray for the parents for God to give them comfort.

Faith712 said:

We live in a sinful world and are born sinners. However, once we accept Christ as our savior we are no longer sinful, we are without sin. So, if we are no longer sinful, why does God allow bad things to happen to us?

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1 John 1:8
English Standard Version
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

Jesus paid our "sin debt". Jesus helps us overcome our sin ... and that is a life-long process.

so we are sinful ....

That being said ... we are told in His Word there will be great tribulation in this world (for everybody) ... and so there is.

Jesus goes through everything with us.

tampasteve said:

I have struggled with this before. First, scripture tells us we will still suffer. Second, forces and nature are at work in this world. I personally do not believe that God works direct miracles any longer. He works through doctors and He works through other people doing good things and good works - but I do not believe he generally directly makes miraculous things happen. That is not to say that it does not appear so at times, but I do not believe it is the normal course or something that we can expect as believers. All too often "miracles" can be explained or are hoaxes to begin with. I used to believe in direct intervention, but then I saw too many children of believers die of cancer or other evils of the world. I just can't believe in a god that chooses to heal one child while choosing not to heal another. Rather, I see it as nature working in people, some are healed by what we can do for them, others cannot be. It is not because the person or the disease is evil, it is just what diseases do in a fallen world.

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I agree. God made some mushrooms poisonous, so we'd have to think and learn about mushrooms (actually I'm not sure we should even be eating them).

One lesson from the seemingly unfair loss of innocent life is that God upholds his laws and expects us to take them seriously. Our fallen 'checker' may be far from the first one to fall, but in the end they are in the same row, poised to fall.

Rabbi Harold Kushner and his wife had a child that suffered from the rapid aging syndrome. By the time the boy was 8 or 9 he had the body of an 80 or 90 year old man. There is no cure or treatment. Such victims usually die in their early teens. This prompted him to write an excellent book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. I highly recommend it.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People Quotes

“Pain is the price we pay for being alive. Dead cells—our hair, our fingernails—can’t feel pain; they cannot feel anything. When we understand that, our question will change from, “Why do we have to feel pain?” to “What do we do with our pain so that it becomes meaningful and not just pointless empty suffering?”
― Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People

“I don’t know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws which we don’t understand are at work. I cannot believe that God “sends” illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don’t believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute, and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best. “What did I do to deserve this?” is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is “If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?” As we saw in the previous chapter, it becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don’t hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world.”
― Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People

“We don't have to beg or bribe God to give us strength or hope or patience. We need only turn to Him, admit that we can't do this on our own, and understand that bravely bearing up under long-term illness is one of the most human, and one of the most godly, things we can ever do. One of the things that constantly reassures me that God is real, and not just an idea that religious leaders made up, is the fact that people who pray for strength, hope and courage so often find resources of strength, hope and courage that they did not have before they prayed.”
― Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People

“In the final analysis, the question of why bad things happen to good people translates itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it has happened.
Are you capable of forgiving and accepting in love a world which has disappointed you by not being perfect, a world in which there is so much unfairness and cruelty, disease and crime, earthquake and accident? Can you forgive its imperfections and love it because it is capable of containing great beauty and goodness, and because it is the only world we have?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving the people around you, even if they have hurt you and let you down by not being perfect? Can you forgive them and love them, because there aren't any perfect people around, and because the penalty for not being able to love imperfect people is condemning oneself to loneliness?
Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not prefect, even when He has let you down and disappointed you by permitting bad luck and sickness and cruelty in His world, and permitting some of those things to happen to you? Can you learn to love and forgive Him despite His limitations, as Job does, and as you once learned to forgive and love your parents even though they were not as wise, as strong, or as perfect as you needed them to be?
And if you can do these things, will you be able to recognize that the ability to forgive and the ability to love are the weapons God has given us to enable us to live fully, bravely and meaningfully in this less-than-perfect world?”
― Harold S. Kushner, When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Faith712 said:

... So, if we are no longer sinful, why does God allow bad things to happen to us?

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There may be many reasons, but I think basic reason is: we are in this “life” to learn what good and evil means. That is why also evil things are possible here.

God doesn't allow bad things to happen to His children, period.

"All things work together for the good of those who love Him."

There is no bad in this... there may be pains, sufferings and trials - of this we are spared nothing - but ALL things we endure, are for our good and benefit us in various ways.

We are being refined like gold, the dross is being removed, that we may be perfected.

God willing that when I stand before Him on that Day, I be worthy to stand through the sinless blood of Christ.

That are lots of ways to approach this, but specific to your question, think about the consequences:

If immediately right after you were baptized you came out of the water and everything was great and nothing bad could happen to you, would people after you be baptized out of “faith” (trust) or would they be baptized to avoid from than on anything bad happening to them with no faith being needed?

I have in the past used Jesus’ answer to this John 9:1-7.

Notice Jesus did not say: This is Adam&Eve’s fault, satan’s fault, sin’s fault, bad luck, or evil in the world’s fault.

Jesus is saying bad things happen for the good that can come from them. Now good does not always come from tragedies, but should it /can it?

Also, there are lots of Lazarus (s) in this world setting at rich men’s steps providing the very best opportunity for those rich men to experience Godly type Love (God). Lazarus is doing his job provide this wonderful opportunity, but sadly the rich men God also Loves do not cease the opportunity. So who do you want to be?

"For whom the Lord loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives. Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline-then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." - Hebrews 12:6-11

tampasteve said:

What is God teaching the two Godly, Christian, parents of a child who dies of cancer, only to see another child they knew in the same program live? People on the outside often say "oh, it must be drawing you so much closer to God right now" - that is a slap in the face when really they are questioning everything about a God that in their eyes chose to let their child die, in spite of all their prayers and the prayers of their family, friends and people that never knew them. Did they just not have enough faith? Did they just not pray enough? Did they commit some sin without repentance at some point in the past?

*EDIT*
I am sorry if that seems like an attack, that is not my intention. This is still a subject that is tough for me, and the above is from personal interaction, it is not anecdotal.

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I would like to point out a few things.

I have looked in the eyes of my dying child and told her it was okay if she was too tired to fight anymore (she fought cancer hard and the treatment pretty much destroyed her, long story I guess)...

But we do learn SO much about ourselves through these experiences.

I was not Christian when my daughter died, but I did believe in God, I had began questioning my own religion (Islam) before she ever got sick, her getting sick in the middle of my seriously questioning faith and Christianity was incidental, although was a trial of its own.

I eventually came to a saving faith in Christ about a year or two later and there was a time I had to really explore whether I could actually trust God, trust that his judgments are perfectly Just and trust Him with the eternal soul of my child, the person I l loved more than life itself.

I also had to explore whether I could praise God through it all, and be thankful for the time our loved ones are with us, and trust all is well even when they don't feel well in the moment.

In the darkest hours of our life, we always have a choice. Will we become bitter and full of spite for our Creator, the God who is sovereign over all things, or will we praise the God of all creation, and love and trust in Him knowing that the hour we are here will pass, and better will come whether in this life or the next when we stand face to Face before God..?

We find our very real weaknesses, and learn to overcome them, learn to stand strong in the faith..

When in our darkest hours (and there are always more than one...) if we ask God what He wants us to see and learn from this experience and be open to see the truth of our own imperfections and weaknesses and open to changing what is inside of us, then God will always answer.. without fail

And it shows us everything... we are called to be overcomers, and it is possible through Christ Jesus alone.

We know that we do not desire to become of those whom it can be said;

"for even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks"

Although some will. As I said, these are the trials that show us ourselves, and how we react to them will be witness to our own selves on the Day of Judgment.

We all know we're mortal. Like the old saying goes, there's nothing sure in this life but death and taxes.

It doesn't make any difference whether we're Christian, Atheist, Moslem, Buddhist or belong to any other creed.

Likewise the same set of physical laws and statistical chances will apply to all of us. If we walk off a cliff, we'll fall to our deaths at the bottom just like anybody else. If Coronavirus is in the neighbourhood, we've got just as much chance as getting or not getting it as the next person, subject to circumstances.

On those rare occasions when Christ spoke about supernatural deliverance from death, I had the impression He was usually talking about people being persecuted for their faith and who were sticking up for him - not the general run of life.

The real deliverance is what happens in the next eternal life - not this passing one in a "sum zero energy universe" (which essentially means that this universe which looks so massive to us actually adds up to nothing).

What's the Total Energy In the Universe? | Live Science

Hazelelponi said:

God doesn't allow bad things to happen to His children, period.

"All things work together for the good of those who love Him."

There is no bad in this... there may be pains, sufferings and trials - of this we are spared nothing - but ALL things we endure, are for our good and benefit us in various ways.

We are being refined like gold, the dross is being removed, that we may be perfected.

God willing that when I stand before Him on that Day, I be worthy to stand through the sinless blood of Christ.

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Great quote there from Romans 8; and I know you have experienced the heartaches of life more than some ppl have.