In 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner, wrote a best-selling book entitled “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People.” Back in 1981 I was a mere middle schooler, and this book was most certainly out of my reach academically and not remotely of interest to me. I was more engrossed in Seventeen magazine and Tiger Beat. And I am sorry to say as an adult I still have not read it. However, the title has been quoted frequently over the last 40 years.
As I am beginning to understand things now, I am seeing that a revision of that title is long overdue. Bad things Happen to All People could offer fresh perspective. The title itself, poses the question that people of faith having been asking since the beginning of time. What can I do to avoid hardships? Remember Job’s friends? They were trying to figure out what Job must have done to deserve the tragedy that upended his life. In the Gospel of John Chapter 9 verses 1-3 the disciples ask Jesus, “Rabbi, who sinned that he should be born blind, this man or his parents?” Jesus did not explain this man’s disability by casting blame, in fact he took the focus off the man’s physical infirmary and pointed toward his faith in God. Pointing to the fact that bad things happen to all people, and it is not being sinful or sinless that holds the greatest importance but rather faith.
We keep asking, in the church today the same questions that Job’s friends and the disciples asked all those years ago. Christianity trumpets this idea through catchy marketing campaigns about being “Blessed.” The idea of being blessed seems harmless enough on the surface. But what of the faithful person whose life has dealt them one terrible gut punch after the other? What about the man who was born blind? What about Job that lost everything? How do they receive the message of blessing? If a simple cause and effect dynamic were truly at work here, then when we fall short, bad things will happen and if we follow faithfully blessings abound.
Like the title of the book suggests, heartache does not discriminate. Good people suffer. I would stretch this to include all people. All people suffer. What would it look like if instead of trying to figure out the why of suffering we simply joined in and walked alongside the sufferer regardless of their beliefs, culture, heritage, and salvation status?
In the church we are fairly adept at offering support in the beginning of the crisis. We listen, we care, we bring food. There does, however, seem to come a time, when enough is enough and that caring somehow turns to judgment. The pain of others can be so hard to bear that we can be tempted to encourage sufferer to put on a happy smile and proclaim that “all things work together for good.”
On my journey toward understanding my faith in a new and fresh way I realize that this very thing has become a huge stumbling block for me. In fact, I have identified this as one of my first and most persistent doubts. It’s origin is in this idea, that the pain of life can be somehow be bypassed through adherence to sound Biblical disciplines. Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It is a way of not feeling the pain of loss and disappointment and acknowledging only that which is good. This focusing solely on the positive and being overly optimistic perpetuates the hope that there is a formula for avoiding the hardships of this world. If one is spending enough time in the God’s word and dedicating themselves to prayer daily, then God will reciprocate with protection and blessing. It stands to follow then, that if things are not going well then it must have to do with a lacking in the sufferer. Something they are not doing correctly. And for those who are not able to put a smile on, they are left with the guilt of not being Christian enough or spiritual enough.
What I noticed several years ago was a swift and total thanking of God when life handed out blessing and an equally swift and eerie silence when trouble and tragedy descended This is subtle way of trying to control the uncontrollable. Frequently as I sit with individuals in my private practice, and they share their own story of heartache and pain I say to them. You are just experiencing the reality that has always been. You now understand now how little control we all have. I then remind them that the rest of us are still trying to believe that we have much more control than we actually do.
Hear me out, this is hopeful not hopeless. It means that life is hard. It means that all people have trouble, loss and pain in their lives. Suffering is not a signal that, sin has occurred. It is not so much cause and effect as we have always wanted it to be. There is no shaming the victim here, we are all just a bunch of fallible humans doing the best we can. Instead of trying to figure out what others have done to deserve their devastation we could just walk up to them, put our arms around them and walk the rough road with them. We could do this as a testament to the truth that bad things can happen to all people.
Thank you for being so honest about this. It is a huge issue for the Christian Church/faith in particular when it teaches that life is always good for those who do the right things. You spoke truth to a grand untruth. We all go through suffering. It's just life as a human being. Church didn't allow me to be human for too many years.