Lately I’ve been hearing today’s quote a lot; maybe more people are saying it these days or maybe I’m just noticing it. It’s the idea that if you’re a good person, then you deserve good things and those things will surely come to you. But is it really true that good things happen to good people? Don’t bad things happen to good people too? And what does the Bible say about it?

“Good Things Happen to Good People” – Anonymous

I couldn’t find a definitive origin of the quote “good things happen to good people”, it just seems to be one of those sayings that is part of our cultural consciousness. And so, knowing that it’s not in the Bible, let’s see if there is any Biblical truth to it.

In a previous post about God and karma, we wrote about how you reap what you sow, a concept we find in Galatians 6:7. From that we can surmise that good things will happen to good people, and bad things will happen to bad people. At the same time we read in the Bible that it rains on the just and the unjust. So which is it?

Life shows us that often times good things happen to bad people, and sometimes bad things happen to good people. This is not a problem with the Bible seemingly contradicting itself, it is a problem with our perspective. We tend to think in the short term, tend to think about immediate cause and effect – if I do something good today, then something good should come back to me tomorrow. We also tend to think of “good things” as things that are immediately pleasurable. Here is God’s promise:

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” – Psalm 84:11 KJV

When we read the Bible we find that what is good in God’s eyes is not necessarily good in our eyes (Isaiah 55:8), and so if we operate by faith in understanding this, we can be confident that things happen for a reason, and that all things work together for good, to those that love God. And so we can be confident that if we walk in faith, and do good before God, that He will bring good things into our lives that will accomplish His purposes. And if we are truly His children, then we could have joy in doing His will regardless of our immediate circumstances, knowing that He is working in our lives and one day we will see Him face to face.

Days like today come with mixed emotions from many, but not to the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 victims. We know that today they can rest knowing that justice has been done. This morning the world heard the news that Muammar Qaddafi was killed.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” - Proverbs 14:12 NKJV

While the killing of any person is not a reason to rejoice, there are scores of people doing just that today, but with good reason. Qaddafi’s atrocities over the many decades are very well documented, and so it’s hard to not feel that he has earned his reward. We do know that the Bible teaches us that a man will reap what he sows, and so today is harvest time for Qaddafi.

And then there are those who have supported and defended him over the years – today they mourn. They are those who do not believe in the Bible, but believe in their own sense of what is right. To them, they are justified in in their actions, however despicable they may be. But don’t they know? And isn’t today a testament to the truth of God’s words? There is a way that seems right to them, but its end is the way of death. Qaddafi had his way, and it has led to his death, similar to the death earlier this year of Osama bin Laden. On that day another Bible truth was confirmed that “whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed“.

So today is not a happy day, but it is a day that we see the justice of God executed, and the victims of this man can sleep a little easier tonight. Let’s pray for them, and also pray for the country of Libya. Let’s hope that the future of Libya will be much brighter than its past.

Feel free to leave a comment if you agree or disagree.

I have been trying to resist posting something about the death of Osama bin Laden, and was doing quite well, until I stumbled across this quote today.

“Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.” – Bible or Not?

Although I am satisfied that justice has been served, that’s not what this quote is all about. There are truths in life that we observe, and they are without judgment, being merely the nature of life. Like the idea of karma - you reap what you sow. This is one of those. A man who shed the blood of so many men and women, had his own blood shed and his life taken away by another man.

This is a well-fitting quote for the death of Osama bib Laden. And also fitting, the quote “whosever sheds the blood of man…” is in the Bible and can be found in Genesis 9:6.