Related Ideas: Is it all part of God’s plan? Can we trust that God works everything for good?
It’s understandable to wonder about this. Since God created and sovereignly oversees all creation, it seems logical to think everything must align with his will, right?
Brief Answer: Not exactly. It’s crucial to distinguish between what God allows and what his true will is.
Detailed Answer:
When you claim something is God’s will, you imply God desired it to happen. However, there are countless instances where events occur that are not, and will never be, part of God’s will. For example, did God want me and my friend to sneak out at night, break into garages to steal fire extinguishers and soda, and fill ourselves with sugar and our neighborhood with sodium bicarbonate (what fire extinguishers spray out, which, by the way, can cause a gushing bloody nose if sprayed in the face)? While these actions may not have caused significant harm, they were entirely against God’s will.
More seriously, consider the hurtful and sinful acts that inflict real pain on others. God does not will these actions; he allows them for a time, but with a purpose. Ultimately, he will place all experiences in the context of eternity, bringing about redemption and justice.
The claim “everything happens for a reason” can hold some truth in the sense that God uses our experiences to foster goals he has for us and our relationships with him and others. However, suggesting every bad thing occurs because God wanted it to happen is a bold assertion that needs to be challenged and needs evidence if it is to be believed.
There are many examples of bad things, which eventually led directly to some greater good. God, who would know all the equations and all the variables of how the Universe operates, could take bad events and work good out of them, even good many years away and across the world, but is that necessarily true for all bad things?
While it’s true negative events can lead to greater goods—such as lessons learned or personal growth—it doesn’t mean every bad situation is wanted by God for some good work. Some things that happen, in fact, much that happens, results from people acting against what God wants. So why did my friend suffer a debilitating car accident? The reason it happened is simple: another driver chose to drive while drunk, not because God wanted it for some later good, but because someone made a bad choice.
Some may quote, “God works all things for good for those who love the Lord.” While this holds validity, it’s important to consider the verse in context (Romans 8). God can and does bring good from even the worst situations, but this doesn’t mean these were always meant to happen, nor does it negate the pain or sorrow associated with them. God may allow it, and work with it for your good, but God still very much mourns with you and is against wrongful harm to his loved ones.
The reason I don’t worry excessively when bad things hit is because there is a context. This life must be placed in the context of an after-life, which will dwarf any sum of experiences we may go through in this life.
And if there is an authority over this life, who understands better than I, and loves me to the point of what was displayed on the cross, then I am sure there will not be anything happening, no matter how horrible, putting me in a position where I will stand before God and rightly say, “You really messed that up.”
Christians, when grounded in scripture, don’t embrace “blind faith.” We can cultivate trust in God. Though we may never fully grasp his nature, we can rely on His goodness, even in the toughest times, knowing he holds us securely.
