Why Bad Things Happen to Good People - a reply to a comment made in an email to me

Hey, you said,

"I kept asking for God to look out for me and
things didn't stop...so I had to ask myself
why should I believe when he wasn't listening."

When I committed to improving my relationship with God I my life got better AND worse. But I learned by asking and receiving that the hard stuff is put there for my own benefit and learning. You have kids, have you ever taught them something that was hard for them to learn or do you try and protect them by keeping them at the same age and level of understanding? (I can't imagine that's even possible without locking them in their room forever.)

I've been amazed of all the times I've found out that he's listening. However, it seems that if you don't know who we are or why we're here then it's hard to put the things that happen to people in context. That is, we're all here in this life to learn and decide if we're going to choose good or evil in order to grow and mature and live up to our possibilities as Sons and Daughters of heavenly parents. That is, we're part of a family and we can grow up to be more like our parents and attain greater responsibility. But just like kids, our parents have to let us go out into the world and prove ourselves and experiment on our own.

God can't live your life for you and can only help you to get through your challenges and, if you're listening to Him, tailor make your circumstances for your learning and growth. Life can become harder if you're on his side but the rewards are enormous.

Again, hope I haven't overstepped here. I hardly know you and I'm talking to you like an old friend ... some people don't take kindly to that.

Now, mind you, anything I've said here I don't pretend to be the one with the answers. Anything I say I do with one condition, if you want to know if anything I've said is true, ask God. Don't take my word for it.

Of course, learning to recognize the subtle responses he gives us or recognizing that we have to ask the right questions is another topic entirely ... I'll just say that he can't meddle too much in our experiment or we can blame him at our trial later, the one that decides how much responsibility we get in the future and how well we've learned to serve and participate in a greater whole (that crazy 'Glory' concept that confuses everyone just like the atonement.