When Bad Things Happen to Good People

When bad things happen, the agony can be too great to bear, and people cast about for someone to blame—even pinning fault on themselves—so that life can seem to make sense again. Blame, though, causes people to become bitter, and it can prevent them from completing the journey from loss back to wholeness. Kushner recommends that people find a way to forgive those who have caused hurt, including God, and to accept and love others despite their imperfections. 

The book of Job in the Bible relates the story of Job, a God-fearing, pious, and successful man whose loyalty to God is tested with multiple disasters until Job cries out at the unfairness and demands an accounting. His friends try to comfort him, explaining that Job must be to blame and otherwise making things worse. God appears in a whirlwind and chastises the friends, then upbraids Job for his impertinence, whereupon Job realizes God’s magnificence and relents. God rewards Job with new wealth and new children.

The “Book of Job” recounts this strange adventure as a morality play in which the reader is invited to consider whether God can at once be both all-powerful and all good if Job is so cruelly treated.

When we are hurt by others, sometimes the damage feels too great to overcome, and this feeling can prevent us from forgiving others and feeling love for them once again. This idea applies to God as well, since tragedies sometimes erupt out of the chaos or randomness inherent in His universe, and we sometimes accuse God of causing those events or at least blame Him for not preventing them. Like most humans, God isn’t trying to hurt us, but sometimes inadvertently harms us, and it becomes our task to find a way to forgive Him. If we can do so, we can re-open the path to love, which empowers us to heal and grow again. 

God wants humans to love Him freely, just as He loves us. To this end, He has endowed people with free will, which they can use either for good or for evil. Using our free will, we might choose not to love God; this is a risk He accepts. Loving God confers benefits, but our resentment toward God—for failing to give us what we want in life or for permitting harm to befall us—can prevent us from loving Him. Thus, it is for each individual to grapple with the conflict between the need for God’s beneficence and the joy of loving Him as He is. If we succeed in this task, we greatly enhance our ability to love not just God but everyone. 

Life has meaning when we believe it serves a good purpose. When tragedy strikes, however, the suffering causes many to question life’s purpose: If God hurts good people, what’s the point? Kushner believes God can’t, or won’t, intercede in the events, good and bad, in human life. Instead, He provides love and support so that people can get through bad times and return to the good. A meaningful life, then, comes not from God’s protection but from his support and from a person’s determination to prevail over life's difficulties. 

Many worshippers see prayer as a way to intercede with God and beg Him to provide miracles. Kushner believes God doesn’t cause good or bad things to rain down on humanity; instead, God dispenses the strength to get through bad times and the love to enjoy the good. Prayer, then, is a way of communing with God and asking for His assistance in dealing with life’s challenges. God doesn’t answer prayers for miracles or exemptions, but He does answer prayers for strength and fortitude.