When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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• When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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Classical Explanations

• God is testing you
• God took him/her to a better place
• God is punishing that person he/she must have
  done something wrong
• Blaming the Victim
• Making sense of lifes tragedies by blaming it on
  the person.

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Conventional Explanations

• God is testing you.
• God is sending this to you because God knows your
  faith is strong, that you can handle it.
• God never sends you a burden that you cannot
  bare.
• There are reasons now that you cant understand,
  but God will teach others through it.

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Does God send tests into our lives?

• Life tests us
• We teach others to hate/reject God when we say
  God has done this.
• God does not make one person blind so that those
  who have sight might be grateful
• Retardation
• Starving children

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God wanted him/her in heaven

• God does not need to take anyone. God is already
  100 with us now and after we die.

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Blaming the Victim

• Making sense of lifes tragedies by blaming it on
  the person.
• You must have done something wrong to deserve
  it
• Assaulted woman its her fault
• Divorced womans mother nagging
• Jews of the Holocaust too conspicuous

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Causes of Evil and Suffering

• Human sinfulness
• Out of control cars, stray bullets, crimes
• Amoral laws of nature (no conscience)
• Tornadoes, hurricanes, cancer viruses,
  earthquakes
• These are acts of nature

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Why did this happen?

• Consolation, not explanation
• Care, not theology
• Im sorry
• Reach out to them

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God is powerfully involved

• God brings goodness, meaning, and order out of
  evil, absurdity, and chaos.
• Humans are the language of God
• God comes to us in the genuine outreach of caring
  people
• Humans are the incarnation of God
• Genuine acts of God
• When ordinary people do extraordinary things
• When cowardly people unexpectedly acquire courage
• When self-centered people unite for others to
  help build up lives

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Important Question

• JB
• Blow on the coal of the heart
• Can you forgive God for making a world as it is?

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Making Prayer a Part of Our Daily Lives

• Centering Prayer
• Scriptural Prayer
• Examen of Consciousness
• Finding God in all things

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Discerning Gods Will

• Three Steps
• Pray seek to do Gods will
• Consult your deepest attractions inclinations

• Place alternatives before you to determine which
  brings the most peace of heart