This status inspired me to blog about this. I think it's one of the world's million-dollar question, actually. So, why do I believe good things happen to people?
I did promise this blog would also be a spiritual one, and I reckon (well, hoped!) this was enough of a "warning" for whoever here doesn't like this religion stuff. But my faith right now defines a lot of who I am, so I'll take a shot at this million-dollar question.
But before I go on to give my reason why, I'll let you in on a little case study beforehand.
I wouldn't say we're "good people", I suppose, but my family is pretty much just a typical Filipino family. My parents are very much into their faith (that sometimes it even gets a bit too much for me, haha). My parents are not the kinds of Christians who are only Christians on Sundays then live their life forgetting about it for the other six days. Personally, I don't really know how to define what a "good person" is because I believe every person has good and bad in them, and that every definition anyone can possibly come up with is pretty subjective in nature anyway. But if I go along with the world's generic definition of a good person, I honestly think my parents make the cut. They may not be perfect people, I know that for a fact, but they're not mean people. They get along with everyone: friends, churchmates, work colleagues, whatever. They haven't killed anyone, nor do they even have a criminal record.
Yet, after around two years when my sister was born, the inevitable happened. April was contracted with Type 1 Diabetes. Yes, the type where you're insulin-dependent and you have to inject insulin on yourself with a needle everyday. I was only five years old and the only disease I knew was the flu. I've never heard of 'diabetes'. Because of this, my mum had quit her job as an electrical engineer to care for my infant sister everyday. My dad continued to go overseas a lot throughout my childhood to find good money. Because the health care system in the Philippines wasn't any good, and many of the doctors there barely know anything about diabetes, my sister was always in and out of the hospital for the following four years. My mum had sold many of her jewellery to pay off hospital bills (hey, no Medicare in the Philippines y'know!). This suffering eventually led us to migrating to Australia soon after because we heard news that their healthcare system here was infinitely better.
Now, I don't exactly know why April got diabetes. All we know is that it's hereditary from our dad's side (one of my dad's cousin has Type 1 Diabetes too). But out of all people in our family, why did it have to land on us? Like I said before, my parents in many ways do fit the criteria of what being a "good person" is in this world. They go to church on Sundays and pray everyday, like what my friend said on her Facebook status. Yet, why did it have to be us when Charles Manson's grandchild or someone else like that could've gotten it instead?
I think this argument is actually a lot of the reason why many people become pessimistic towards the belief of this world having an all-seeing, omnipresent God. They say "If God exists, why do bad things happen?" To be honest, I totally get them. I really, really do. And I'm not just saying that because I want to relate to people or whatever. I went through what this felt too.
But now, you know what I reckon? The reality is, this is the real world, this is life, and bad things are going to continue happening, whether it came from people's immoral acts or through inevitable occurrences such as sickness. And yes, I believe in God. So, how exactly have I put these two together?!
Over time, thanks to numerous sermons and random readings of devotional books and the Bible which have, by blessing, ended up informing me a lot, I've learnt that even though we decide to live our lives for God, become a "really good Christian", whatever, He never promised that this world, the planet earth, and would be perfect and that we'll never ever suffer ever again. Why?
- God gave us freewill from the very first time he created man (see Genesis 2-3), and because the first man and woman chose to sin instead of obey God, sin inevitable entered this world. Up until today, men still have the chose to do the right or wrong thing, and because many of us continue to do wrong instead of the right, our actions have hurtful consequences on us and the people around us. God isn't going to control the world fully and make it 'perfect' because even though He wants us to chose Him, He still wants us to chose to do the wrong or right thing. Actions have consequences.
- With the inevitable stuff like sickness, death, whatever. Remember: God really really does work in mysterious ways, and He has a plan for each of us. Sometimes His plans are just not as straightforward because often He reckons there's something beneath the suffering that's going to teach us some things about life. Or many some other reason, I don't really know! But either way, still cheesy to say and sometimes even hard to believe when things do get hard, but everything does happen for a reason (see Jeremiah 29:11).
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