What if Everything DOESN'T Happen for a Reason?

I've heard it said way too many times, and so have you:

"Everything happens for a reason!"

I find that it is most often used as a way to comfort someone faced with some sort of trial, loss, or other unfortunate situation. I also find that many Christians quote it as though it were God's word itself, when in reality I think it paints an awful picture of God that is far from His glory.

Maybe I'm a blasphemer, but I just don't believe that God purposes trials or has predestined "reasons" for them. I don't think He's looking down on us struggling or suffering, hoping we "get it" and learn the lesson our situation is supposed to teach us. He may not take our suffering away when we call on Him, but that doesn't mean He willed it. He just wants to be the One we call on when we're going through all our junk.

He gets it! He gets our junk. In fact, He so gets our junk, that He fatally nailed all of it to His own Son. He knows life gets hard, and wants to walk us through it and give us strength and peace. He wants to fight beside us and be there when we need someone to run to. He wants to be the one to carry us and catch all our tears. Jesus himself said this:

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." - the Gospel according to John, Chapter 16, verse 33

Jesus clearly separates His doing from the world's doing, and the troubles of the world from His desire. Why would He have to overcome troubles that He Himself purposed in the first place? He wouldn't! He doesn't want us to look at our troubles as lessons to learn. In fact, He tells us here that He gives us His word so that we can have peace through our trials knowing that He has already given us victory.

What if, instead of telling people that "everything happens for a reason" when they come to us faced with tragedy, we tell them to "take heart"? What if we told them that our LORD is sovereign and good, and that He already beat this world and all the stuff it throws at us thousands of years ago. What if we told them He cant wait for us to experience His gracious and compassionate love (Isaiah 30:18). The phrase "everything happens for a reason" is a lie that needs to stop!

It's not just a lie we often tell others; it's a terrible lie we often tell ourselves. Have you ever felt like you were going through tough times because you did something wrong and God is "mad" at you? It springs from the same exhausting concept. Yes, exhausting. Awfully exhausting. We trap ourselves in this worldview that if life sent us into a rut, it's because God is disappointed in us and He's trying to teach us something. Cause and effect. Everything happens for a reason.

How exhausting! God never wants us to feel like we are constantly disappointing Him, especially when life isn't going "our way". He wants to be our Rock, our Foundation, our Guidance, our Everything. He wants us to hand it over to Him and trust Him, even if things don't change. That's the whole point of our faith, right? We follow God because we love God and know He is true even if we can't always see it. We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

There is an Enemy who doesn't want you to have the peace of heart that Jesus promises you. There is an Enemy who does want you to feel like God is disappointed in you and "punishing" you through trials and tribulation. He is a cruel, evil Enemy and a oppressive, hateful Enemy. And he can get you so frustrated because you feel like you're doing everything "right" but God still isn't pulling through for you and is instead punishing you for not working hard enough. He can make you feel like you're never doing enough for God, and that's the "reason" life isn't happy.

He can't, however, pluck you from the Hands of your eternal, divine, loving Daddy because no matter how much he tries to hide from it, Satan is a defeated, overcome Enemy. Jesus paid too high a price for God to let you go down easy (or at all). If there is a "reason" at all you're going through tough times, it is not God's doing, it is the doing of the Enemy and of this broken, fallen world. Ever since Adam and Eve, man has been giving evil an open invitation to pervert God's word, design, and creation, which He all has called "good." God is not the cause or reason for your sorrow.

No matter what, there is always good news. Very good news. Jesus. Jesus has overcome this entire world and everything that makes us feel anything short of peaceful. He overcame it all and gave Himself for us, and now we share in that victory. Don't let the Enemy trap you in exhausting, unhealthy thinking, but rather let the power, love, and grace of our LORD give your heart rest and your spirit peace, knowing that many like you are suffering as well, and that God sees and cares. You can have peace knowing that God carries you through the storm and hurts when you hurt, and that your name is written in Heaven, and that one glorious day, He will bring you home (my apologies for the run-on, I got a little carried away there...).

But not before He does great and mighty things through you right here.

Photo taken during the spring of 2013 of an oncoming storm at Fort Mountain State Park

"[Satan's] cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do [God's] will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." - C.S.Lewis

Why is There Evil if God is Real?

A common argument against the existence of God is the presence of evil and suffering. How can God be truly sovereign if suffering and evil is allowed to exist? Is God all-powerful, but just doesn’t care, or is He caring but not all-powerful?

I think if we’re going to ask these questions, we need to reflect on what evil really is. Is evil just the actions, or does it extend to thoughts and intentions? Where do you want God to stop when it comes to eliminating evil from the world? Do you want Him to destroy all evil, or just some of it? Jesus stated that hatred and anger is just as evil as murder (Matthew 5:22), and lust as evil as rape (Matthew 5:27). If all of evil is purged from this Earth, we are going along with it.

Evil isn’t just something that exists on Earth that God can’t get rid of. Evil is a decision we choose every time we reject God in favor of the world. Evil is anything that opposes God. We create evil. We embraced it way back when Adam and Eve decided to turn against God. At that moment, we were banished from the Garden, where God does not allow evil, to Earth, where we have brought evil. We are separated from God because we chose to be. Evil exists because we brought it here. We gave into Satan’s temptation, and continue to struggle between Satan’s temptations and God’s promise. What happened when Satan turned against God? He was banished from Heaven (Luke 10:18, Revelation 12:9). What happened when we turned against God? We were banished from the Garden (Genesis 3:23).

The truth is: God can eliminate evil. He can get rid of it. He can, and He did. We have been separated from Him, and so has the Enemy. But the amazing and incredible part of the story is he allowed us to live, that someday we may return to Him. And yet we see in the scriptures that despite every attempt from God to show us His mercies and grace, there were still those who chose to reject Him. And from this rejection of God spawns all the evil that we witness in the world: the murder, the homocide, the rape, the slavery, the injustice. Do the victims deserve justice? Absolutely. Are the sins of those oppressing greater than the individual sins of the oppressed? Absolutely not. All sin is equal.

The fact of the matter is that no matter how oppressive someone may be, that person can never have an impact on the eternal fate of those who are oppressed. In the end everyone is judged according to what they have done (Romans 2:6). Everyone is responsible for their own actions. Too often we look at the suffering in the world and we blame God, when really man is to blame. Granted, there are circumstances where man does not directly cause the suffering (natural disasters, sickness, etc.), but even still, we should not blame God. God stated Himself that He would never again destroy the Earth by a flood (Genesis 9:11). If God were to destroy one people for their sin via natural disaster, He would have to destroy all peoples, because all sin is equal. We can rest in His covenant that states that He would never do this. We live in a fallen world not because God neglects it, but because man has corrupted it. Suffering and evil are products of this fallen world, not God’s neglect.

Many times people look at the book of Job and attribute his suffering to God letting it happen. This is not the case at all. God only let happen to Job what He knew Job could handle, and to prove to Satan that Job’s commitment to Him was not dependent on how well He provides for him. We should instead look at the book of Job as an example of God’s sovereign power. God forbid Satan from doing certain things. He drew lines and Satan obeyed. Satan rules over this fallen world, causing temptation, evil, and suffering, but we can rest assured that God triumphs over Satan, evil, and restores those who are suffering. Jesus stated that although we may face hardships in this world, we should take heart in the fact that He has overcome the world (John 16:33).

It is clear that God does not turn a blind eye to our sufferings. Jesus wept when Lazarus died (John 11:35), showing His deep compassion for His children. When we are sad, God is sad also, wiping away every tear (Revelation 21:4), and hearing our every cry for help (Isaiah 30:19). He LONGS to be gracious to us and He RISES to show us compassion (Isaiah 30:18). We are not distant from God when we are suffering, no matter how tough it may be. No, we are closest to Him! God reveals to us that His grace alone is sufficient for us, and that His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

So the real question is this: How can God truly be just and allow our sin to go unpunished? Why does He let us walk this Earth when we consistently reject Him in favor of the things of this world? How, although we sin, are we saved from God’s wrath? The answer is Christ. We deserve death, Hell, and the divine wrath of sin for all the crimes we have committed against an infinitely holy God, from our thoughts to our actions. Even still, we can be saved from that wrath by His grace through our faith in Christ Jesus, who He sent to bare the sins due us on the cross.

No amount of oppression can separate us from that Love. No wave of the ocean can wash it away. No bullet can pierce it. No words can prove it wrong. No evil can overtake it. Love never fails. First, however, we must accept His love. We must put our whole faith in to it. We must trust it, go all in, bet our lives on it. It’s all we’ll ever need, and we all desperately need it.

God cares and we can be sure of it: Jesus took on the cup of the wrath of God so that we may be re-united with Him. Let us rejoice in our sufferings and keep in mind that “suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” - Romans 5:3-5

in His grip,

Zack