Assigning Blame Accurately | Doubting God’s Goodness (Part 3)
May 12, 2026
As mentioned in a previous post, I walked away from God for many years. I blamed Him for the bad things that happened in my life. I am not alone in that temptation. Bad things happen on this earth - death, injury, sickness, divorce, discrimination, abandonment, abuse, wars, natural disasters, and the like. In trying to explain the bad things, you may have been told by teachers, parents, pastors/priests that storms and accidents are “acts of God,” that God must be teaching you a lesson, that you never know what God will do, that God is mad at you, or that God doesn’t exist at all. If you blame God for the bad stuff, it is understandable.
In my own quest for answers after my sister died, I came across this verse from John 10:10. This is Jesus’ teaching that He is the Good Shepherd. The thief in this illustration is referring to the devil or Satan and contrasting him to Jesus, the GOOD Shepherd.
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I (Jesus) have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (NKJV)
This verse transformed my thinking about God and the source of bad things. God is responsible for the good in my life, and the devil is the influencing source of anything that results in stealing, killing, and destroying. The spiritual realm influences the physical realm. Humans are the ones who carry out, or put into action, the influences of the spiritual realm in our physical world. If the spiritual influence is God, that is good. If influencer is the devil, that is when bad things happen.
Can’t God just stop the devil? It is not that simple. At the time we were created, God designated humans as the ones who have dominion and authority on the physical earth. Psalm 115:16 states that the heavens are the Lord’s heavens, but the earth has He given to the children of men.
Genesis 1:26 & 28
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
When they were in the Garden on Eden, Adam and Eve had close fellowship with God. God assigned them the job of exercising dominion on the earth. Humans still have that dominion or authority. If anything is going to happen on the earth, humans must bring it about. That is why prayer is so important. Prayer is essentially the human act of inviting God to intervene in earthly affairs. This puts a footnote to the statement “God is in control.” Humans have full dominion on the earth. God can only intervene when we specifically ask and allow Him to do so. This was a shocking revelation to me!
Here is what happened at the time of Adam and Eve’s fall. The enemy influencer came in and suggested to them that God’s goodness could not be trusted. By introducing doubt, the “fall of man” occurred. This original sin, the freewill act of disobedience on the part of Adam and Eve, had consequences. It brought a curse on the earth (see Genesis 3:16-19). This curse was far-reaching and included bad stuff that would happen to both humans and to the very dirt of the earth itself. God’s supernatural protection enjoyed in the Garden stopped because humans chose to step out from under it. Mankind is now completely on its own to do the best He can. Knowing Jesus and exercising the authority He gave us gives us a leg up in creating a life that is more influenced by the goodness of God and less influenced by the curse. Alas, everyone on the earth is daily subject to as much or more bad spiritual influences as good influences, and every day each of us choose which influence wins.
The curse was not a punishment. It was a consequence. Throughout the Bible, we find the things that are under the curse. We also find in the Bible instruction on what we humans need to do to stop the curse’s bad consequences in our lives. Understand that a cursed earth will naturally bring about bad things. So, when bad things happen, we know that it is the consequence of the curse and of humans’ naturally selfish and willful choices. We were given freewill by God as a gift. We can use it to work evil or we can use it to work good. It’s our choice.
Now, Jesus enters the picture. 1 John 3:8 says:
He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
Your thought life is either under the influence of God or subject to the influences of the devil. When our spirits were reborn at the time we made Jesus our Savior, the devil’s grip was broken. We can now choose to allow our thought life to be influenced by God for good, or we can continue to choose to be influenced by the devil who introduces sinful and selfish thoughts that may result into harmful actions. Jesus bought us a way out of the curse of sin by the cross. Romans 5:6, 8-10 says:
6 For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. 10 For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
Bad things happen because of the curse. The curse makes mankind vulnerable to the influence of the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Jesus broke the curse for those who will believe in Him and let themselves be renewed in their minds daily. God is not the source of bad things, so don’t blame Him for what the devilish influencer and free-willed selfish humans do. Assign the blame for bad things accurately. The responsibility lies squarely on the ones who have been given dominion on this earth and who willfully choose who they will allow to influence them.
Bad things are going to happen because we live on a cursed earth. But, understand that those bad things are not God’s will for us. God is the way out of effects of the curse! He is NOT using sickness as some kind of twisted sadistic teaching tool. He is not mad at you, and He does not hate you. He brought redemption, which is our hope and the answer to turn around/survive bad things - if we will believe in and trust in His goodness.
Prayer: God my Father, forgive me for all the times I doubted Your goodness and for all the times I blamed You for the bad things that happened in my life. From this day forward, I take responsibility for my choices and the consequences of those choices. I forgive those who have done bad things to me because of who they allowed to influence their lives. Today, I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Jesus, I ask You to forgive my sins and to break any spiritual strongholds that have trapped me and held me in bondage. Today is the start of a new day. I will daily look for and thank You for the good things in my life, be they little or big. I ask these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.