Imagine if God had appeared to you on New Year's Eve to tell you that nothing bad will happen to you in 2001, obviously you would feel a great sense of relief. Each time in the new year that you felt anxiety you could dismiss it because of God's announcement.
I would like to live in a world where nothing bad happens to anyone but this is not the reality of life in our world. Bad things happen to all of us. Many times bad things happen to good people. It is this undeniable reality of evil that has been repeatedly used by skeptics to deny God's existence. They ask, "How could a loving, all-powerful God exist when his world is so full of evil?" Would the skeptics actually become believers if nothing bad ever happened to anyone? Perhaps they would approve God's existence if bad things only happened to bad people. Yet, if this were the case, how should "goodness" and "badness" be judged? What standard determines bad behavior?
When we demand from God a world where nothing bad happens to anyone, we run the risk of eliminating ourselves because we all do bad things. If, as scripture declares, "All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory" (Romans 3:23), and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), then the fact that anyone is alive is evidence of God's mercy. Remember, we are the ones who rebelled against a good Creator. D.A. Carson writes, "The sovereign and utterly good God created a good universe. We human beings rebelled; rebellion is now so much a part of our make-up that we are all enmeshed in it. Every scrap of suffering we face turns on this fact. The Bible itself centers on how God takes action to reverse these dreadful effects and their root cause, sin itself; and the believer's hope is the new heaven and earth where neither sin nor sorrow will ever be experienced again."
God's willingness to allow a world where bad things continue to happen is an amazing demonstration of his mercy. I recognize that this is easier to believe when bad things are not happening to you. Yet this is what scripture teaches (see Romans 9:22-23), and scripture is not judged by our experiences. Carson writes, "If in fact we believe that our sin properly deserves the wrath of God, then when we experience the sufferings of this world, all of them the consequences of human rebellion, we will be less quick to blame God and a lot quicker to recognize that we have no fundamental right to expect a life of unbroken ease and comfort. From the biblical perspective, it is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed." The fact that God would show kindness to any is sheer mercy. But the truth of Scripture offers far more. In flesh and blood, God entered this bad world in the person of Jesus, and allowed bad people to commit evil acts against himself. Did he have the power to stop those who opposed him? Yes. Why didn't he use his power? Because, in love, he willingly chose to provide us with salvation by bearing the punishment that our sin deserved. Those who receive this salvation will one day be delivered from all evil.
Bad things will continue to happen in 2001. A desire for nothing bad to happen must be placed beside the acknowledgment of God's mercy. Salvation is still offered to humanity. We also have a great promise to which we may anchor our troubled bodies and souls in turbulent times. The apostle Paul wrote, "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose' (Romans 8:28). In his book "The Invisible Hand", R.C. Sproul comments on this promise: "We note that Paul does not say here that all things that happen to us are good things. In fact, bad things happen to us. Painful things. Things that crush our spirits. Things that leave wounds and scars. Things that evoke grief and lead us into the house of mourning. Yet all of these bad things that happen to us are working together for our good."