I wanted to take some time to talk the kids about the trauma they experience after losing a beloved pet. My favorite cat Monty died unexpectedly last week and I took some time when the grief was still raw to write up this broadcast so that I could help kids to be comfortable with their emotions and to know that love is still a wonderful thing even though it can also cause us a lot of pain. I also talked a bit about how to be sensitive and kind when others are hurting. It is my hope that this will encourage conversations with parents and kids not only about pets but also when relatives pass on.

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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel. Parents, any scripture this week will be from the Miss Tyler Version (the MTV) which is the Christian Standard Bible reworded and expanded a bit to make it easier for kids to understand the meaning.

Parents, today we are going to talk about some sensitive issues related to losing a family pet. So, if this broadcast isn’t appropriate for your kids, this is the time to turn off the broadcast. However, I am hoping that this will reach the ears of kids who need to understand about the decisions we make for our furry, finned, or feathered family members and coping with the intense feelings of losing them.

So, I am super sad today. I am writing this about a week before I will record this broadcast because it is important to me to talk to you when real things happen that are sad for families. Last Friday, my tomcat Monty and his sister Sunflower were getting their yearly checkups and I showed the Veterinarian, the animal doctor, a lump on his back that was a few weeks old but wasn’t hurting him and I couldn’t get them in right away so I had to wait, which wasn’t a big deal. Well, the doctor didn’t like the feel of it and so she tried to see if it was just a cyst since it wasn’t hurting him. Well, it wasn’t a cyst and so she checked it for something really bad called cancer and that’s what it was. But still, as long as it was just under his skin it wasn’t a very bad deal because they could remove it plus the two other smaller lumps beside it that I hadn’t noticed. Yesterday he was supposed to get an operation but first they needed to look inside his body to make sure there weren’t any other problems. So, I waited at the store across the street for a couple of hours and organized the shirts that people had kinda messed up to keep myself occupied.

When she called me, the doctor wasn’t happy at all because Monty had lesions, which is cancer, all inside his liver and spleen and from there, it had spread everywhere in his body, and he had lost weight even in the few days between our visit and the day he was supposed to have surgery. She told me that we could keep Monty alive if we really wanted to, but that we had probably caught it just in time before he really started hurting very badly. It was very sad for me because Monty is my cat and his sister will miss him because they came from the same litter, which means their momma cat had them at the same time. So they have been together every single day of their entire lives and they love each other and snuggle and lick each other and play together all the time. Monty is my favorite out of all the cats I have ever had in my life. He was twelve years old and he was a total cuddle bunny, always purring and loving on me. I knew I would be incredibly sad without him. But I also knew that it wouldn’t be too many days before being petted by me would hurt him terribly, and he was already not wanting to eat very much in the past few days.

So, what we did was very hard but since there was no way to make him better ever again, and even though I would miss him very badly, I decided to call my sons Andrew and Matthew who rescued them from an abandoned house when they were only three weeks old and dying, and Andrew and his girlfriend Jackie were able to come and say goodbye. I brought his favorite treats because he hadn’t eaten all day because we thought he would have an operation, and he ate them like he was a wild lion eating an antelope. And then he walked around the room and butted his head against all of us and then the doctor came in and gave him a shot so that he would fall asleep. He never stopped purring and I had him wrapped in my bathrobe from home so that he wouldn’t get cold or feel scared, and it took about five minutes and he fell asleep and couldn’t feel anything anymore—like when a person has surgery and they make them go to sleep and they wake up later like nothing happened and didn’t feel anything that had happened to them.  That’s what it is like for cats and dogs because we don’t want them to be scared or to hurt anymore. We want them to still be happy and not suffering. After he went to sleep, the doctor gave him another shot and used her stethoscope to check his heart until it just wasn’t beating anymore.

Although I was really sad yesterday and today I am even sadder, I know that it was good for Monty to not be hurting just because I wanted him to still be with me. But it isn’t an easy decision to make and no matter what we do, we always wonder “what if” so we just have to make the best decision based on what they need and we have to trust God to take care of the rest. Pets aren’t like people. People can be really sick and in a lot of pain but they understand what is going on and so there is still a reason to be alive. But that isn’t true with animals. They don’t understand what is happening to them—all they know is how bad they feel all the time. We don’t do this with people because people are created in the image of God. No matter how much we love our pets, they just aren’t the same as people and so when they are going to be miserable, we can help them out. Knowing that they won’t hurt anymore makes is easier but it doesn’t make it easy.

So, that was how I spent my day yesterday, and now I am very sad and his sister is very sad too. She knows something is wrong and she started to figure out last night that Monty might be gone forever. She is just laying on the couch not looking very good and just wanting to be near me. So, I turned on the heater because it was in the 30’s this morning, so it was really cold, and sometimes when we are crying and sad we get cold and can’t warm ourselves back up.

Have you ever lost a pet? Pets are very special to us because they love us with their whole hearts, and even if they get angry because we clipped their claws or shooed them off the table (no poo-poo paws on my table, I always say) or if they don’t like the new food you gave them to eat or, worst of all, if you have to give a cat a bath, they forgive us and want to be with us again pretty quick. They forget what we do to make them mad—not like humans because we can be angry at someone for a long time. Dogs are especially forgiving, even if cats might take a while. My dog Bandit died in the spring, he was very old, and our other old dog died the year before. My dogs were always glad to see me and didn’t care what I looked like or anything about me—they just loved me and wanted to do everything with me. It’s very nice to have a friend like that, who wants to be with you even when no one else does and pretty much thinks you are the best thing ever! Sometimes they even sleep with us at night, or maybe they can do tricks and play with us. It’s great having a companion, a friend, who is always there when we need them. When they are gone, we can’t just get a new puppy or kitten or bird or hamster because they all have different personalities.

It’s very important to give ourselves time to be sad. Being sad is what always happens when we love someone and then they are gone. There’s nothing wrong with that. Even Jesus cried when His friend Lazarus died—even though He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. In Bible days, when someone died, all the neighbors would come over and sit with the family and they would all cry and be as emotional as they wanted, and for a whole week no one did anything else. They knew it was important to be sad and that it takes as much time as it takes for people to stop being sad all the time. But just because they aren’t sad all the time doesn’t mean that they can’t get sad for a while again. That’s normal and good too. God gave us these wonderful emotions and gave us the ability to love others and a need to be loved back and He didn’t do that because it is terrible to be sad. Girls cry, boys cry, mommies cry, and so do daddies. We all cry because we are dealing with a loss.

A loss is when you had something important to you but now it is gone. It feels really bad to not have that animal or something or someone in your life anymore. God gave us our emotions to help us deal with that. Just imagine your best friend moving away to another place and you just don’t even care. Does that sound right? You’d be disappointed and lonely and sad, right? But some people are really weird when other people feel sad. Instead of just sitting and hugging and crying and just listening, they try to get us to cheer up because grief, when we are sad about someone dying, makes some people feel bad and strange and they think they can just joke with us or give us a donut or take us to the park and we will suddenly not hurt anymore or miss them. Well, that’s not how love works and we are sad for as long as we are sad and that’s that. God wouldn’t give us those kinds of feelings if they weren’t important.  

Or maybe you got mad because this happened to a pet you loved and didn’t understand why the adults in your life had to make the same decision I made. Maybe your pet looked okay but had things that were so wrong on the inside that they were going to start having very terrible lives. I know that it is hard, but remember that they loved your pet too and it was very, very difficult for them to do that and especially since they knew how much it would hurt you. They might not have cried in front of you, but they might have cried alone in the car on the way back home or later that night. They might feel terribly guilty even though they know they made the right choice to be kind. Sometimes, when we don’t understand and aren’t the people who have to make the hard decisions about what to do—it’s easy for us to be frustrated with and even mean to the person who had to do it. If that’s the case, I want you to pray to God about it and ask Him to show you what to do. You might need to forgive them and say you are sorry for being so angry at them. I know that what I sure needed was a big hug because I kept thinking that maybe there would be a miracle and he would get better. But I have to tell you that if I let him live and I was wrong, it would have been very bad for Monty in probably just another week and I would regret keeping him alive. And he wouldn’t want to be alive anymore. Sometimes, adults see problems that kids can’t because we have experienced more. An important part of being a grownup is knowing when our animal’s lives need to end.

And you might be angry at God, or just angry because you think it is unfair that your pet had to die. And you just want to be left alone to cry and sort things out but people bug us, trying to cheer us up and  think they are doing us a favor when we really just want them to go away and leave us alone, right? And some people say terrible awful things while trying to be helpful that only makes it a lot worse. And sometimes when that happens, we just want to clench our fists, stomp on the ground, and tell them to shut up! Because we were sad but then they came along and said something hurtful and now we are angry and sad and we are sorry we even know them, right? That’s normal too. Some people think they always have to say something when they shouldn’t say anything at all. Being hugged can be good but hearing a speech isn’t always what we need. It’s okay to ask politely to be left alone to pray or to sleep or to cry or however you need to handle it.

But, you know what? When people say mean or stupid things when they are trying to be helpful, it’s important that we pay attention to what things make us feel bad, or hurt even worse than we already do, or make us feel like we should be happy instead. Of course, you aren’t happy! Why should you be?? Maybe you are relieved that your pet doesn’t hurt anymore but that isn’t the same thing as being happy. It’s more than okay to be sad and the Bible tells us many stories where someone dies and everyone cries and even for a long time sometimes. But people can say some awful things trying to make you feel better.

They might say, “Well, at least it wasn’t your mom or dad or your brother or sister, at least it was just a pet.” And dude, that is so mean! Making you feel guilty and foolish for being sad when you have every right to be sad is bad enough, but making you think about your family members getting sick and dying is even worse. It isn’t helpful at all and it is just scary. Just like when I got told by someone that if I didn’t want what happened to Monty to happen to my other two cats, they would tell me what to feed them and that was right after I came home, very sad. And then all of a sudden, I was hurting more and upset about the thought of my other kitties dying. That person meant well because she was concerned about my other animals. The timing was just wrong. Or how about, “At least they won’t suffer anymore.” But that doesn’t help either because then you might feel like they are saying you are wrong to be so sad. Of course we don’t want them to hurt but we miss them so much. We don’t want them to suffer but we do want them with us and healthy so that we can love them. You know what? No one should ever say those two words to someone who is hurting, “at least” or “look on the bright side.”

What about when someone says that we should have made different choices and how awful we are for helping our animal to die? Well, they weren’t there and they don’t know and some people just think way too much about their own opinions and can’t even imagine that anyone knows more about a situation than they do, or that their opinions aren’t helpful, or even correct. There are always going to be people who talk without thinking about how it would make them feel to hear that when they are already feeling horrible.

Or they might ask, “Did you pray?” And that isn’t helpful either because that can make people feel guilty thinking that they didn’t pray enough or that maybe they should be angry at God for not saving their loved one when they did pray. When we are sad, we need God to be there as our comforter and friend and to know that He is sad because we are sad but when we get angry at Him, we push Him away when we need Him most and when He wants to be there for us the most. When bad things happen, people want there to be a reason, someone to blame, some way to keep it from happening in the future but you know what? Bad things happen because they happen. Everyone in the Bible, including Jesus and especially Jesus, had terrible things happen to them. Sometimes because they did something wrong themselves and sometimes because someone else chose to hurt them, but God doesn’t go around killing people because you didn’t pray enough. He doesn’t have this list that says, “Uh oh, Janie only prayed nine times and not ten so I am not going to help.” The truth is that everything and everyone dies, and if they didn’t then the world would get pretty bad really quick. We all have our time on earth and when we are really blessed, we get people and animals to love and who love us in return. But nothing lasts forever.

Some people might ask, “Why are you so sad? It’s only a pet!” And when they say that, you might feel dumb and embarrassed for crying. Or they might say, “Oh that’s nothing, when my dog died it was much worse because…” Or “I know exactly how you feel because…” but they are making your hurt all about themselves! It’s very nice to hear things instead like, “I am so sorry, that’s so hard. It is terrible when the pet you love dies. I know how hard it is because I have been there too and if you ever just want to talk, I can listen and I will understand. You aren’t alone, and you aren’t weird for being sad, and crying, and even being angry and feeling guilty. You didn’t do anything wrong. I know you loved them very much and made them very happy. They had a good life with you and now that has changed and it is good and right to be sad for as long as you are sad.”

I am a grownup and so I know that Monty didn’t die because I did anything wrong, or didn’t pray enough, and God didn’t kill Monty because He was angry with me. Monty died because something went wrong in an organ called his spleen and the cells went crazy and it spread to his liver and then it went all through the insides of his body. It’s something that happens sometimes no matter how good care we take of our pets. I have probably had twenty pets over my life, cats and dogs, and it is fun having them as puppies and kittens, and then as grown-up pets, and as they get older the time comes for them to die one day. And that day is hard and so are a lot of days afterward. But you know what? It was worth it. I would still do it all over again even though I am sad right now. Right now, I am having trouble remembering what it felt like to have him on my lap purring for the last twelve years because it hurts too much when I think about him. But I am only hurting right now because of all that love. I still had all those good times with him when I played with him as a kitten, and when he jumped in my bed for cuddles, or when he would follow me into the backyard when I would work in the garden. Sadness doesn’t make love bad because it was always good and it is still good. Monty dying doesn’t undo all of the wonderful times and hopefully it won’t be long before I can remember the silly things he did and smile or even laugh. Love is always good. Love is God’s gift to us. There will never be another cat exactly like Monty and I had to stop myself yesterday from going to get another kitten because that wouldn’t help right now, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t be other things in my life that are just as good even though they will never be the same.

In the book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3, the teacher says: “There is a time for everything, and a time here on earth to do everything: there is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant things and a time to pull them out, a time to kill and a time for healing, a time to tear things down and a time to build things up, a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to mourn (which is what we do when someone dies) and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them up, a time for hugs and a time when we don’t want to be hugged, a time to search for things and a time to give up because they are lost forever, a time to keep things and a time to throw them away, a time to tear things apart and a time to fix things, a time to be quiet and a time to speak up and be heard, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.”

This is a very famous part of the Bible and there is even a song about this because this is some of the best poetry ever written by anyone ever. A lot of Hebrew poetry doesn’t sound very poetic when it is translated to English but this one does. We have to understand what people need when they need it and also what we need when we need it. If someone has died, then it is time to be sad. If a new baby is born, it’s time to dance and laugh and be happy. There is a time when medicine can make someone better again, and times when it can’t. Everyone who has even been born will die someday, usually because they get old and their bodies wear out, and that’s a good thing because just imagine if we got older and older and it was harder and harder to walk and we just never died? Dying can be a good thing then but the people who love that person are going to be incredibly sad and that is right too. It isn’t selfish to wish someone we love was still around. It just means that we love and miss them. And it is the time to cry. And so, I have been crying a lot and when I see my grown-up kids, I put out my arms because I need a hug and they do too. And I feel guilty because his sister Sunflower is incredibly sad and she doesn’t know why her brother isn’t here anymore. Those are normal feelings and God is helping me to feel them. He will always help you with your feelings too and you can be honest with Him even if you are really angry with Him. The people in the Bible do that a lot, because our relationship with God is very real and He knows what we are thinking anyway so why try to hide it from Him? He can take it. His love is bigger than anything you are feeling.

I love you. I am praying for you. And I am glad for my time with Monty. I bet you can say that you are very glad for the good things in your life too, even if they won’t be around forever. The Bible tells us that one day, God will wipe away all our tears and I can tell you that He does it here and now too. He heals us when we are sad because He loves us.

This week I am going to introduce you to my wonderful, funny, and beautiful young friend Savannah Smalling who is going through a tough few years in and out of the hospital. And when things like this happen, or any other tragedy, we ask ourselves the same question we hear in the lamentation Psalms–why does God allow bad things to happen to good people? We’re going to look at Psalm 73 and how the Bible encourages us to bring our complaints and confusion and anger to God. Is this a question we can even answer? Let’s find out. 

If you are on Facebook, you can follow Savannah’s journey here. She loves talking to new friends!

https://www.facebook.com/My.Sweet.Savannah.Smalling

If you can’t see the podcast player, click here. This is probably a better one to listen to than to read, if possible. Tone of voice is important in things like this.

Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.

Today we’re going to talk about my good friend Savannah Smalling and her family. They are people who I love a whole lot. And we are also going to talk about something called Theodicy. And theodicy is something we find a lot of in the Bible and especially the Psalms. Theodicy is the fancy word that theologians (those are people who study all the stuff about God) use when they are asking, “If God is good then why is there so much evil in the world?” And maybe you have asked that too—we all ask that. It’s normal. It’s a good question! There is nothing wrong with asking that question because we find it all over the place in the Bible. The Bible gives us permission to ask God all sorts of things, and to be angry, and confused, and to even ask if God is really so good. Never forget that God already knows exactly how you are feeling and thinking so you might as well be honest with Him.

Many years ago, I was very angry with God about things that happened when I was a kid. And He never protected me. He let bullies hurt me for years. And I hated Him for it. I loved Jesus but I hated God and maybe you feel like you hate God too sometimes, but maybe you can’t admit it because everyone around you might freak out. But you know what? Sometimes they hate God too. Sometimes they are angry and confused and wonder what on earth He is doing! Now, in the ancient world, all the pagan nations could never admit that about their gods because their gods would just nuke them or worse. If one person got angry at their gods then they thought terrible things might happen to the whole community. Maybe there would be no rain and they would all starve! Maybe locusts would eat all their crops and they would starve! Maybe the earth would open and swallow them down whole. Maybe an army from another country would kill them all because their god wouldn’t protect them anymore! They had to be super careful around their gods because their gods were super touchy and easily offended. But one of the ways our God shows His goodness is by allowing us to be angry, and to ask questions, and to sometimes even accuse Him of stuff when we just don’t understand why everything is going wrong.

And the reason He allows us to do that, to be open and honest with Him when we are angry and struggling, is because we are in a Covenant with Him. That means that we have a real relationship with God—we aren’t just people who go to church and sing worship songs and put money in the plate. We are people who live with God every moment of every day. We are people who God sees and knows inside and out. Jesus said that every hair on our heads is numbered—wow, God loves you so much that he even keeps track of your hair. It means that God doesn’t forget us. That He hasn’t abandoned us. That we can always talk to Him about everything and anything we are thinking or feeling or going through and we can know that He really does care. When we accepted Jesus as our Savior and King, it meant that we started a wonderful relationship with God, and that we will live with Him in the world to come—when Jesus is King of the earth. And that is a wonderful promise.

But that also makes God very confusing because we want the kind of relationship where He protects us from everything bad that could ever happen to us, where we never get sick and no one we love ever gets hurt or dies. We want to always have enough money and for the weather to always be nice. We want the people around us to be kind and generous and if they aren’t we want them to be punished and we want everyone to hate them and see how awful they are! Those are the kinds of things we think and those kinds of thoughts become something called expectations. Expectations happen when we believe that someone else owes us something, or that we should be able to do something just because we want to be able to do it. And we all tend to think that God should make our lives wonderful and easy, right? We don’t want the bad stuff to happen to us or to the people we love. We don’t understand why He allows so many terrible things to happen to the people who love Him. I know that I really struggle with that too because if I was God then everyone I love would have it really good and would never get sick or suffer at all. But then I imagine that the people who make me mad wouldn’t be very happy because if Miss Tyler had that kind of power, then she would probably start to be pretty evil and mean. Just being honest here. No one except God and Jesus can handle that kind of power and not be crazy about how they use it.

But, yesterday I found out my friend Savannah is having problems again. Savannah and one of my sons have the same medical problem. They have something called hydrocephalus—which means “water on the brain.” Our brains are surrounded inside and outside by something called CSF, and it keeps our brains floating so that when we fall or turn our heads, our brains won’t crash into our skulls and we make more CSF all the time in our bodies. But with Savannah and my son, they keep making more CSF but the old CSF doesn’t go away and so it can be very painful. Just think of a bottle with something inside it. If it has a hole near the top, then you can keep putting in more water forever and the bottle won’t burst. But if the bottle doesn’t have a hole then the new water will just keep trying to force it’s way inside. So Savannah and my son have valves in their skull that allow the CSF to drain away into another part of their body where it isn’t a problem. My son hasn’t had many problems and he has only had four shunts put in since he was six days old and got his first one, and he got his last one two years ago when he was nineteen. But Savannah hasn’t been as fortunate—she has been suffering so much and the doctors have tried so many things and yesterday I just got so angry and so I went into my backyard and was digging up my dead strawberry patch and was yelling at God.

“It’s not fair! How come my son’s shunt is okay and Savannah’s isn’t? Why does she have to hurt all the time? It’s not fair. You can fix this—why are you letting her hurt like this. It isn’t like she deserves this. She isn’t a criminal and she loves you and her parents love you. I love my friends, Lord, and I don’t even know what to say to them and they live so far away that I can’t be there for them and I am angry. I am grateful that you have been so kind to my son and to me and God, I feel guilty that Andrew is okay and she isn’t. What’s going on? Why Savannah? I know you see how hard this is on her parents. What do you want from them? Are we not praying enough? I know that isn’t the problem. I just don’t even know what to say because I am so angry and I am embarrassed because I don’t have any answers for them and it doesn’t seem right that, with all the terrible things I have done in my life, and with what a goober my kid can be—why this has happened like this. We don’t deserve this Lord, and they don’t deserve it. I am grateful but I am also so confused and hurt. Why is one doing okay and the other isn’t? I know it isn’t because you don’t love her because when I pray I feel your love for her. Why won’t you just fix her!!!”

And eighteen months ago, I did the same thing when my son’s shunt was not working for the second time in a month and we thought he would die. And two years ago, when a young friend died unexpectedly, and over the last two years when so many people I knew were so sick with COVID. And over the last month with the war in Ukraine. I get angry and I talk to God about it and sometimes I am so frustrated with Him that I don’t even know what to do. Maybe you have felt that way when you are sick, or have a sick pet, or when bullies are after you at school, or you studied really hard but failed your test, or broke your leg just before the big game or whatever. When life isn’t fair, we ask the big questions. We want there to be easy answers but unfortunately, sometimes things just happen. And we get angry because we know in our hearts that life was never supposed to be like this. Maybe it’s because of the Adam and Eve DNA that we all have in us, We know that our lives were meant to be perfect and wonderful, without sickness and death and hardship. And because we know that, deep down, we get angry when we are stuck with this crazy world where sometimes everything seems upside down. God didn’t mean for it to be like this but we’ve always been out of control and so we have sickness and there are people who hurt other people and sometimes we hurt other people. If we all just loved one another like the Bible commands, there would be almost nothing left for God to need to fix.

In Psalm 73, we see someone who is really angry at God, but really confused too. This is the MTV, the Miss Tyler Version:

“God is really good to his people, the people who aren’t just out there faking it. But I lost my balance and almost abandoned him because I was jealous of all those people who are just so full of themselves and the really mean people I know who have everything they could ever want. Life is so easy for them—they don’t struggle and they’re eating out at fancy restaurants every night. They never get caught for the stuff they do and they never get in trouble. They never get sick and nothing ever goes wrong for them. So they are out there with their noses in the air thinking they are all that and a bag of chips, and it’s like it doesn’t even matter how much they hurt people. They get to eat so much that even their eyeballs are fat, and whatever they want to do, they just go and do. They make fun of others and spread lies about them to hurt them, and they threaten to do terrible things to people who can’t even defend themselves. And they even disrespect God and never miss an opportunity to just say whatever nasty stuff they want. And so people see them not getting punished and they actually like go out following them and listening to them! They just can’t get enough. And these villains say, “God is powerless, if He knew what I was doing and saying and He was really so great, I’d be dead!”

“I mean, just look at those guys! They never have any troubles at all, life is so easy for them, everything goes their way and they just get richer and richer. Come on, am I following God for nothing? Am I obeying His commandments for nothing? What’s in it for me? My life is so terrible, all day long and every morning it’s like something worse comes around. But if I admit it in public, if I admit how much I just am jealous of those guys who do nothing but wrong and enjoy nothing but blessings, I know that I am going to send people in the wrong direction, away from you. And I have tried to understand, but nothing made sense and I didn’t think it ever would. But then I came into your Sanctuary, into your presence and the place where Your throne is, and you made me understand—You gave them everything to see what they would do with it. You made their lives easy to see if they would be good or bad. And because they have had it so easy, and should have been so grateful and humbled, they have no excuse for what will happen to them when you finally judge them. When I thought they were blessed, it was actually a curse because their blessings became a trap. They won’t even know what hit them because it disgusts you to see what they have done with all their blessings.

“I really thought they had it made, because I was hurting and I was acting like what we have here in this life is all there is. I was forgetting what You have done for us and what You promised to give us. Yes, You see what they are doing and how evil it is but You are not smiling at them, You have never abandoned me and You are always here to whisper encouragement to me when I need it. You have kept me on the right side of things and I will spend eternity with You in Your Kingdom where everything here will seem like nothing in comparison. You are my future and everything I want in this life. Even though I fall sometimes and mess up and forget how good you are and even though I will grow old and weak, You are there for me always and I can depend on You. You are all I really need. Those people who I envy now, their end will be terrible—sometimes I forget that. But as for me, I have You in my life and that is more than wealth, and good food, and health and whatever else those villains seem to have that I don’t. I will tell people about that.”

You see? That’s in the Bible. Things are wrong, and we get angry, and we talk it out, and then we remember what we have, that they don’t have. We remember that this life isn’t all that there is and that the people who seem to have it all sometimes actually have nothing. But still, we might ask ourselves why we aren’t getting perks in this life and special treatment. Well, I imagine that we do sometimes and we just don’t see it because there are things we just don’t see because they never ended up happening. Car accidents are probably a big one. But why doesn’t God just reward us with easy lives? Wouldn’t that seem like the right thing to do to reward our loyalty?

I don’t think it would. I have known a lot of people with easy lives and they are some of the worst people I have ever met—like the guy who wrote Psalm 73 was talking about. Think about it from God’s point of view—if nothing ever went wrong for us, we’d be like those kids who are spoiled rotten and mean-spirited, always screaming and kicking to get what they want and not able to handle hearing the word no or even knowing how to deal with disappointment and pain. We’d become people who are just insufferable and we’d think that our lives are easy because we deserve it and that people who have troubles must deserve it. And I know people like that. Some of them are in churches and they make life really hard for others. But if people around the world started seeing that Christians were all rich and never got sick or had bad things happen, then everyone would become a Christian but not because they loved God or really believed in Jesus or wanted to keep the commandments to love Him and other people, they’d just be in it for the blessings. I guess it would be like if you were really rich and had a lot of friends but you wouldn’t ever know if they just wanted you around because you had the money to pay for everything. What if you ran out of money, would they still even like you?

Because we have bad things happen, and still love God and still try to follow Him, people who don’t believe in Him notice that we are different. It shows them that God is real—but God isn’t sending horrible things against us just to teach other people that He’s worth worshipping. The truth is that things happen to us the same way that things happen to everyone. How mean would it be for God to only let bad things happen to people who refused to worship Him? That would be just so spiteful and petty, right? Why would anyone trust a God who is only good and kind to the people who love Him? Jesus said that even the tax collectors were nice to their friends—but it didn’t mean that they weren’t being rotten to the people they didn’t like. Because God is love, He doesn’t punish people for not worshiping Him. He uses the bad things that happen in our lives to grow us up into more compassionate, loving, merciful and humble people—but He isn’t sending those things on us. Bad things happen to everyone. Things go wrong in everyone’s lives. A while back, my son broke his ankle and sprained his knee and my dog suddenly died within six hours on a Friday afternoon. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t even have time to cry about my dog because I had to take care of my son! But pets die all the time, and especially since my dog was almost fifteen years old. And people have accidents at work all the time. That’s just normal. But when bad things happen and we make it through, God is showing us that He never leaves our side even when it feels like He doesn’t care at all.

So why does God let terrible things happen to good people? I don’t know. But I do know that bad things happen to everyone sometimes. And sometimes people have a lot of bad things happening like my friend Savannah. But it isn’t because God doesn’t love her—He loves her so much. I can feel His love for her when I pray for her. And when I was yelling at Him for how unfair this is, I could feel that He understood. People, since Adam and Eve, have made a big mess of things, and sometimes they just decide to pile up on a person—but that’s when that person is also getting extra attention from God. He is watching and He sees and He is working in ways that they may never know about. And He has plans for them, even when they think everything is horrible. And when we trust Him even when everything looks like we shouldn’t, we can know that it makes Him happy even though our being hurt doesn’t make Him happy. How do we know that having everything go wrong doesn’t mean that God hates us or leaves us or is punishing us?

From beginning to end, the Bible is full of stories of terrible things happening to the people God has chosen to do special things for Him and people who made Him happy. Did God hate Abel just because Cain killed Him? Nope, Abel’s offering made God really happy but Cain chose to do something evil. That wasn’t God’s choice, that was Cain’s choice. God gives us the choice to be good to people or evil, if we didn’t have that choice then the planet would be filled with a bunch of really nice puppets but it wouldn’t mean anything because no one could do what they wanted. Sarah couldn’t have a baby until she was ninety years old because she was disabled and her womb was broken. Everyone would have thought she was useless as a wife and a woman and maybe even being punished for her sins—that’s what they thought in those days. And Sarah got kidnapped by kings, twice, because she was beautiful and they decided to steal her from her family. She also lived through terrible famines. Sounds like she must have been a terrible person to deserve that! Nope, that stuff just happens to people. She didn’t deserve those things.

Joseph’s mom died when he was very young. His ten older brothers hated him and tricked him and threw him into a pit and then sold him into slavery in Egypt. And even though he was a very honest slave, the wife of his master lied about him and he was left to rot in jail for many years. But he was innocent, and God wasn’t being cruel to him—people were. Aaron and Miriam grew up as slaves. The Israelite baby boys were commanded to be killed by Pharaoh. Aaron’s two sons died on the same day.

David was chosen by God to be King of Israel when he was just a teenager, the youngest child of a very large family. But King Saul was jealous and hunted him until he was forty years old. David had to always be on the run and hiding in caves and his wife Michael was taken away from him and then his wife Abigail was kidnapped. Those bad things happened because people decided to do evil things, but not because God was angry.

What about Jesus? He was perfect and was tortured and killed because people made evil decisions. What about the prophets? Many of them were killed by people who were angry about what they were saying about sin. And John the Baptist, he was killed by King Herod for talking about sin. And if you read 2 Cor 11—you won’t even believe all the stuff that happened to Paul as he traveled the Roman Empire preaching about Jesus. Bad things happen no matter how much God loves us or uses us for the good of His Kingdom.

What about Samantha, my young friend? What she is going through isn’t fair, and it isn’t a punishment from God, and He doesn’t hate her. And I don’t know why things are so hard for her and her family. It isn’t right. It was never supposed to be like this. We should all be tending a Garden and making it spread all over the earth. That’s what God wanted, that was His plan for us. And so now we have to do what we can to make the world less bad. And so when we think of Savannah, we mention her to God, and we pray and ask Him to help her. We ask Him because deep down we know how good and kind He is even when we are confused and angry. So, would you please pray for my friend Savannah? Maybe we will understand someday, but right now all we can do is wrestle with God and complain and trust Him that in the end, everything will be the way He planned it from the beginning—a world without sickness and death and evil.

I love you. I am praying for you, and I hope you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.

Over and over again, we hear about Noah doing everything God commanded Him. Why is this important?

If you can’t see the podcast link, click here.

Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.

(Parents, all Scripture comes from the CSB this week, the Christian Standard Bible and we will be mostly in Genesis 6) So, last week we talked about God telling Noah that He would make a covenant, which is a promise that God keeps forever, with Noah and that Noah and his family would be safely aboard the ark that God was commanding him to make. But, of course, God can promise to make a covenant with Noah and that Noah and his family can go onto the ark but guess what? If Noah doesn’t make the ark, then it’s all pretty much pointless.

So, what’s Noah going to do when God tells Him His plans for destroying all the people who were thinking nothing except for violent thoughts and only doing violent things all their lives? When God told Abraham His plans for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, what did Abraham do? Well, Abraham tried to talk God out of it. Even though the people there were terribly wicked, according to the prophet Ezekiel, who said that their sin was that they were living in the lap of luxury and ignoring and even hurting the people who were poor, Abraham tried to talk God out of destroying those places. He kept saying, “If you find fifty people who are good, will you please not destroy the city?” And God said He wouldn’t, and then Abraham asked again but lowered the number and God kept saying that if He found that many, He wouldn’t do it. And Abraham talked God down to ten people and then after that, God disappeared so that Abraham wouldn’t talk Him down to one because there was only one guy in Sodom who wasn’t doing that sort of nasty, mean stuff and it was his nephew Lot.

So, did Noah beg and plead with God not to send the flood? Evidently not. Now, I don’t know if it was because the world and the people in it were just so violent that Noah was scared for his life and wanted them all gone or if maybe Noah just wasn’t as compassionate as Abraham, or maybe Abraham wouldn’t have tried bargaining with God if His nephew didn’t live there. Maybe Noah didn’t know God as well as Abraham did by that point. Perhaps Noah didn’t know that you could even talk to God and discuss things with Him the way Abraham and Moses did—we just don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us and remember that when the Bible doesn’t tell us something, what do we do? We pay attention to what the Bible does tell us. And the Bible never has Noah saying anything before or during the flood, at all, and the only thing the Bible records him as saying happens years after the flood. And it wasn’t very positive. But as for right now, mum’s the word. Not a peep out of Noah—all it says is that—well, let’s read for ourselves.

¹⁸ But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives. ¹⁹ You are also to bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. ²⁰ Two of everything—from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from the animals that crawl on the ground according to their kinds—will come to you so that you can keep them alive. ²¹ Take with you every kind of food that is eaten; gather it as food for you and for them.” ²² And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.

So, even though Noah didn’t say anything that the Bible wanted to record, or maybe He just didn’t say anything at all, the Bible says that Noah did everything that God commanded him. And when we do everything that we are told to do, that’s called obedience. Throughout the Bible, God tells us to obey Him because He knows best. Obviously, Noah felt like obeying God was the wise thing to do! He built this ginormous thing that is described as a three-story box and stuffed it with food and stuff. And we are often so focused on the ark and the animals that we really don’t pay attention to the fact that Noah did this crazy thing just because God told him to do it. And that makes Noah very different not only from everyone else on the planet at this point but also very different from everyone who has gone before him. I mean, let’s think about the obedience track record of everyone so far, shall we? Do I sound a bit snarky? I feel a bit snarky this morning.

Adam and Eve—God said, “eat whatever fruit in the Garden you want to eat but not that fruit over there.” And maybe they said, “Which fruit was that again?” And maybe God said, “This one, right here.” And they probably said, “Okay, just making sure.” And what did they do? They ate that fruit! Let’s compare this to building a huge three-story box in the middle of wherever it was that Noah was living and filling it with animal and human food. Yeah, really not in the same league there. Super easy. Just, you know, don’t pick the fruit, don’t open your mouth, don’t bite into the fruit, don’t chew the fruit, don’t swallow the fruit. This isn’t exactly rocket science. They were told not to do a thing and they did the thing.

Cain—God said, “dude, you did your offering wrong. Just go back and do it right. And don’t go blaming your brother just because he did his offering the right way. This isn’t particularly difficult, okay?” And what did Cain do? Cain didn’t go back and do it right. Cain got angry at his brother and killed him, even. And that was just flat out overreacting to a very simple problem to correct. As we see later on in Leviticus, there was nothing wrong with offering grain and wine and presenting the first and best of your harvest to God, but something was really wrong. Can was told to do a thing and not to do another thing and he didn’t do what he was supposed to do and did the thing he wasn’t supposed to do.

And then we don’t hear about God talking to anyone for a very long time. I imagine He probably talked to Enoch but other than that, we don’t hear any talking out of God until the time of Noah. And then, out of the blue, God tells Noah to do this huge thing that must have seemed crazy and no one, and I mean no one, would have blamed Noah if he didn’t want to do it. That would have been some big job and I bet that when you get homework for school you look at it and think about how much work it is going to be and it’s just nothing compared to building the ark. But Noah did all that the Lord commanded him and the Bible says it twice! The first time is here, when Noah gets the orders to build and prepare, and the next time is when God tells Noah to actually get into the ark with his family. Let’s face it, the second command was much, much easier to obey! And you will find that your lives will be like that—sometimes the very first thing God asks you to do will be the hardest and after that, it gets easier. But not always. As you grow up there will always be challenges and difficult things that you have to do but you will almost certainly never be told to do what Noah did! Imagine how many trips you would have to make to Home Depot!

But all through the Bible, God is going to tell people to do hard things. Abraham was told to leave the place where he had lived for seventy-five years. He had to leave most of his relatives and take everything and start walking from Ur to the land of Canaan. And they could only travel as fast as the slowest of their animals, who had to eat as they went. He had no idea what he would find when he got there but he sure knew one thing, he was a lot safer back home with his clan, who all would have protected each other from enemies. They wouldn’t have any land that was theirs to settle on. They wouldn’t have any friends there that they could depend on. All they had was God telling them to go and do it. I think that was probably very scary. I think that building the ark was really scary.

Do you think that Noah worried about things like not finishing in time? I mean, he still had to do his normal work or his wife and three kids wouldn’t have any food to eat, right? He didn’t have any power tools—or electricity. All Noah could do was set one foot in front of the other and start. That’s always the first part of any job. That’s the hardest part. Just saying, “Okay, I just have to trust God that I can do this and that there will be enough time and that He will show me how to get this job done.” Maybe be hired people to help him build. After all, we will see later in the story that Noah knew how to grow vineyards and make wine and that wasn’t an easy thing to do so he was probably already doing that for a living. It’s a tricky business. If Noah was someone who made wine then he might have had a lot of money and could afford to hire people to help him build. We just don’t know. Remember that it’s always okay to talk about the “what if’s” of the Bible as long as we pay attention to the fact that we don’t know and we can’t say for sure that’s what happened. When we get to the story of Nimrod, we will see how people have forgotten that the Bible doesn’t tell us almost anything about him, or about Melchizedek, and there are so many stories but the Bible and history and archaeology don’t have anything to say about them either.

In the story about the flood, we have a lot that we just don’t know. And that’s okay because, remember, the Bible is a book where God is showing us things about Himself and not so much showing us about history. So far, God has used the flood story to show us how different He is from how the Babylonians saw their gods. He has used this story to show us that even when things get really bad, humans are still very important to Him and He will always save us somehow. And in today’s story, He is showing us that if He gives us a job to do, He will give it with plenty of time to get it done and He will even show us how to do it. Sometimes, He tells us everything all at once but usually, He tells us a little bit at a time so that we will keep listening. And we will find out next week that we aren’t alone when we are doing our jobs—Noah didn’t have to round up the animals, they came to him. That tells us that God will do the things for us that we can’t do ourselves. The false gods weren’t like that, remember when we studied the Babylonian flood story? They were mean, selfish, and not very bright! They created humans as slaves but God created us to cooperate with Him and to show the world what He is like.

And Noah is the first person in the Bible to actually cooperate with God! Adam and Eve had all the advantages in the world and it should have been much easier for them—they had the perfect environment, the perfect jobs, no laundry or cooking that needed to be done because they were bare naked and ate fruit—but they decided to try to be gods instead of cooperating with God. Noah really seemed to know exactly who he was and who God was and not a whole lot of people understand that. So, I want to talk about the word trust. Because Noah obviously trusted God. The Babylonian and Egyptian and Canaanite and Hittite gods sure couldn’t be trusted!

When we trust someone, it makes it easier to do what they tell us to do. When we don’t trust someone, we usually don’t want to do anything they tell us to do—even when we should. I mean, even untrustworthy people are right sometimes, and trustworthy people are wrong sometimes. I wish it wasn’t true but it is! It sure would be less complicated if it was the other way around. But with God, not only can we trust Him but He is always right even when we can’t see it. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t try to change his mind like Abraham and Moses both tried to do, and they even succeeded but not every time! So did Ezekiel the prophet! Jesus even tried once. But wait, if God is always right then how come sometimes we can change His mind? Well, sometimes there is more than just one right answer. Sometimes we might ask Him if He can find another way of doing things. Sometimes we can ask Him to be merciful and to not punish us the way we might deserve. And if we think that everyone who has done something wrong needs to be punished to the full extent of the law every time, then we might think that being merciful is wrong. But mercy isn’t wrong when it is God’s mercy. His mercy is always wise. And sometimes mercy won’t work and He has to be harsh with us instead—but He always knows. We can ask Him to change His mind because we know that if there is no other way, He won’t go along with what we want.

If we don’t trust someone, and they tell us to do something—we have a decision to make. One, we have to decide whether what they are saying is a good idea even though we think they might be sneaky snakes. Two, we have to think about what they know that we don’t know because maybe we don’t have all the information we need. Three, we need to seriously think about what will happen if they are right, and we don’t do it and what will happen, and what will happen if they are wrong, and we do it and what will happen. Sometimes people tell us to do things that really don’t matter a whole lot one way or another. But sometimes, maybe you don’t like a teacher and they tell you to do your homework and you don’t want to because you think it is a huge waste of time but you need to stop and think—if I don’t do this now, will I wish someday that I had just gone ahead and worked harder? Will I miss out on opportunities because I was stubborn? When we ask questions like that, it doesn’t matter whether we like the person or not.

And so when Noah was told to build the ark and why—he had a choice to make. I imagine he had been walking with God for quite some time at that point—I mean, this isn’t the sort of thing God springs on you on day one, right? Imagine going to church for the first time, hearing about Jesus, giving your life to Him, and then God saying, “Okay, so next week I am sending you as a missionary to the Lahdakhi in Tibet and so you have to learn their language and all about their customs and I expect you to know as much about me as someone who has been a Christian for twenty years.” Oh my gosh, God wouldn’t ever do something like that? It would be a disaster. And so for Noah to say yes, He must have trusted God a whole lot already. He must have had enough experience with God to know that this was doable and not impossible. He must have known that God would do everything He said He was going to do.

Now, there are people who think that Noah did everything because he was scared of God because there is a verse in the Book of Hebrews that said that Noah obeyed God because he had something called reverent fear. But what is reverent fear? Well, it isn’t the same thing as being scared to death of someone, that’s for sure. Fear is what you have when someone can hurt you bad and when you can’t trust them to do what is kind and good, and you are scared of them because you know what they might be capable of doing to you or someone else. That’s the kind of fear we have of some humans. Reverent fear is when someone is so much bigger than you are and so much wiser and smarter than you are, and so much more powerful than you are, that you just know that they are better than you are in absolutely every way. We have another word for that, that’s closer to what we mean and that is absolute respect.  Because God is who He is and never lies to us or leads us astray and is never unfair like the false gods of the other nations, we can respect Him so much that we wouldn’t think of not doing what He asks.

Trust is what makes us able to obey with a willing heart—and what God wants more than just our obedience is a willing and trusting heart. If we don’t trust, then we have to rely on fear but trust is about love and knowing that someone else is good and worthy and not out to get us. Who in the Bible do you think trusted God more than anyone? If you said anyone other than Jesus I am going to give you a second guess. What? Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Although Noah had to trust God enough to build an ark, and Abraham had to trust God enough to leave the only home he had ever known, and Joseph had to trust God enough to live a virtuous life among the Egyptians, and Moses had to trust God enough to face the anger of Pharaoh, and David had to trust God enough to fight against mighty Goliath with no armor and a sling, and Esther had to trust God enough to risk death in order to stand up for her people, Jesus had to have more trust than anyone because what he faced was much more terrible. And we could never have done what Jesus did—He lived a perfect life, and he willingly faced all of the anger and rage of Satan and all of his forces of evil so that we could be free of them. And that was such a hard thing to do that, on the last night of His life, He prayed hard and asked the Father if there was any other way to accomplish their important work to save us. And if there was another way. I know that God would have found it. But only Jesus could do what we can’t, because we have all sinned and done wrong things in our lives and so if that had been us, then it wouldn’t have been worth anything.

I want you to think of our bodies as cups full of everything we have ever done, good and bad, okay? Maybe our good stuff is air, and our bad stuff is thick mud. Some people’s cups have a lot of mud in them but everyone has quite a bit. But look at Jesus’s cup—no mud. Only air. Nothing but the good things He did. Satan has a cup too, and the liquid inside is green and smells horrible. If Satan wanted to mess with us and he poured the disgusting stuff in his cup into ours, he would still have a lot of leftovers so that he could mess with other people too. And Satan’s bad cup is not anywhere near as big as Jesus’s good cup. God knew that if He lured Satan into a trap where he could mess with Jesus, and if Satan threw absolutely everything he had at Jesus, then Satan’s cup would be drained all the way dry and he would be defeated. He would lose his ability to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants. So, when Jesus was crucified and died for a crime that He hadn’t committed, actually when He hadn’t committed any sins at all, it meant that Satan abused his authority and lost the battle. It meant that the Roman Empire abused its authority and lost the battle. It even meant that the High Priest and his chief priests abused their authority and lost their battle because they weren’t representing God when they all worked together to kill Jesus, who was not only innocent of the crime He was accused of, but innocent of everything.

Have you ever been punished for something you didn’t actually do? I am sure you have. Mistakes happen. Have you ever gotten away with something you did that you really should have been punished for? I am even more sure of that. We’ve all been wrongly accused of things we didn’t do. I have done it with my kids too. But a lot of times, they did stuff that I didn’t catch them for. It doesn’t make it right when I would punish them or accuse them and I was wrong about it, but it does mean that they weren’t perfect and so even when they didn’t deserve that punishment they couldn’t claim to be totally innocent. But Jesus could. Jesus was innocent because He always obeyed God and did what was right—even when some important people got really angry at Him for it.

Now, the really cool thing about Noah was that he wasn’t a perfect guy. All he was, was righteous and blameless compared to the other people who lived at the same time. That means that he cared very much about doing what was right but it doesn’t mean that everything he did was right. But, when God gave him a huge job, Noah said yes. When God said, “Just your family and just two of these kinds of animals and seven of these other kinds of animals,” Noah didn’t go sneaking more animals onto the ark. What Jesus did in obeying God and being willing to die for us, so that Satan wouldn’t be in power over us anymore–that was amazing! And we wonder how Jesus could do that and part of it, a big part, is because He loves us so much. But the other part is because of how much Jesus trusted God because they had been together from the beginning of the Heavens and the Earth. Because Jesus knows God the Father better than anyone ever has or ever will because they are part of each other, it was possible for Jesus to know that God’s way is the only right way to do things.

But Noah didn’t know God as well as Jesus and yet he still obeyed. He built the ark exactly like he was supposed to. He didn’t sneak more people on board even if he wanted to. He didn’t sneak more animals on board or say no to animals he didn’t want to have to deal with. Noah trusted God and he just obeyed, and I bet it was hard. So, I don’t want you to feel alone when God asks you to do something hard. Because the Bible is a book full of people who trusted God and obeyed and didn’t trust God and disobeyed, and sometimes people do a little of both!

I love you. I am praying for you. And I pray you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.