Why do bad people seem to prosper while good people suffer? Why is it that ill-bred, dishonest, and corrupt people seem to be rewarded with material blessings while people who work hard and try to live a good honest life can’t catch a break?
Why do a few seem to get away with law-breaking, while others suffer injustice? Why do conmen keep conning? Why do scams continue to flourish? Why do people keep getting manipulated and exploited by some so-called church leaders despite scandals?
Sometime ago, we were cheering on a whistle blower who exposed the “under the table” deals being made from multi-million peso government projects. The money about to be made was so scandalously hefty that one top government executive was prompted to ask the dealmakers to “moderate their greed.”
The poor fellow not only got fired, he even ended up in jail. Meanwhile, the people he blew the whistle on are not only scot-free but have gone on to bag other questionable big government projects.
Meanwhile, politicians found to have profited from embezzlement of government funds are allowed to post bail and then even get elected anew, while an official who stuck her neck in the pursuit of the truth gets maligned and even jailed on apparently trumped up charges and with no recourse to bail.
When you keep reading about the contemptible things that unscrupulous people do for the sake of power and status, driven by greed, and never face the consequences, it is only normal to ask: why does it seem like evil people are successful in life? They get everything they want, they keep getting blessed and they live longer.
Where is God in all this? It’s a mystery as old as man. Even faith-filled God loving people sometimes find this hard to understand. Consider the grieving mothers of young teens and wives of poor urban dwellers who were summarily judged and mercilessly executed as drug addicts or couriers only to see the perpetrators enjoying impunity and even given promotions. Needless to say, they will never be able to comprehend this mystery. Their faith in God must not only have been stretched but even ripped apart.
If we are asking these questions, we are just echoing a desire to see justice, a railing against the reign of evil. The prophet Jeremiah directly asked God: “Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all the faithless live at ease? You have planted them, and they have taken root; they grow and bear fruit.” Habakkuk also asked God, “Why do You remain silent when the wicked devours one more righteous than he?”
Is God playing us for fools?
No, say our spiritual advisers. God sees and waits. God is just withholding His full wrath. In other words, we must endure. We want instant karma, but it seems that the way of His karma carries a lot of wait.
They console us by saying that God’s final display of justice will not be observed in this life, but will be revealed when Christ comes to “judge the living and the dead.” And others would say, God is giving them all the chance to mend their evil ways, so that those who are the objects of his wrath may yet repent and find forgiveness and redemption in Christ.
Like the question why do bad things happen to good people, we will never be fully satisfied with an answer.
I can only explain partly. The wicked prosper because society, including you and me, allows them, perhaps even enables them, to prosper. We tolerate them. We never call them out. Maybe because our silence has been bought. Thus we are partly complicit in fostering this culture of impunity. As someone said, a conman doesn’t have to be smart if his victims are stupid enough or they do nothing.
It’s time we shamed the corrupt, the deceitful, and the unprincipled by our collective outcry and contempt. Let’s make virtuousness and honesty in people something to admire and emulate again. Let us not be immobilized from doing what is right even when the rest are going along with downright illegal and dishonest practices and looking the other way. Let us have the courage to stand up and tell the truth when it is so obvious we are being conned and manipulated.
“Where’s the karma?” is my daughter’s refrain when she sees nothing bad happening to wrongdoers. I tell her to just wait because there are consequences we can’t see. Let’s not be quick to jump to a conclusion based on what you see alone. You can look at actions, but not discern the heart. Greedy, corrupt and unscrupulous people don’t necessarily have joyful, contented hearts.
In the Old Testament, we read: “There is a great evil I have observed under the sun—riches kept by their owner for his own injury.” Even an evil person is given wealth so that it might prove to be the cause of his undoing or even his demise.
Remember, the heavens send rain on the just and on the unjust. Good and bad times happen to all of us. Even to bad people, we just don’t see the bad things happening to them because we are too focused on their material prosperity. As Robin Williams reminds us with a quote widely misattributed to Plato: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” Bad people who are prosperous materially have their own problems too, certainly even more complicated than ours.
Maybe they eat more, enjoy the convenience of luxury cars, the comfort of a luxurious home, and the privileges and entitlements of their social status. But like us, they too have bills to pay. They worry. They get sick. They meet accidents. Their homes get robbed. Their roofs leak. If we prick them, don’t they bleed too, to borrow the famous line from “Merchant of Venice.”
In my case, I am too busy with my own difficulties to bother about them. Things will eventually even out. When we see that we are all experiencing good and bad times in life, as in the rain and sunrise, let us choose to help and support those going through situations we are experiencing as well.