UGW #10: Why Do Bad Things Happen? (And "Are Tragedies Gifts From God?")

Understanding God's Will #10:
(This will be a long one as I look at what the Bible says compared to what Calvinism says.  And I included another post on mine on the end of this one, "Are Tragedies Gifts From God?")


Why Do Bad Things Happen?

Can bad things happen that God doesn’t want to happen?

Obviously, yes!  

We fell, didn’t we?  Because of our sin in the Garden of Eden, we introduced death and sin into the human race and the world.  (I say "we" because we all stem from Adam and Eve and because any one of us, given enough time in the Garden of Eden, would have done the same thing.)  And this is something God didn't want when He created the world good.  It's why He warned Adam and Eve to not eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Because it would make them aware of evil.  It would unleash evil in the world because they would essentially be choosing Satan over God, giving Satan part of their dominion over the earth that God gave them.  And He didn't want this to happen.  

Yes, God gave them the ability to eat from the tree, so that they weren't robots forced to obey Him, so that their obedience to Him and love for Him would be a choice of their own free-will, but He didn't want it to happen.  He didn't plan that they do it (as my Calvinist pastor claims) or cause them to do it.  He took steps to keep it from happening, severely warning them not to do it.  

But He allowed them to make their own choice.  And since He knew they would choose to eat from it, He already had a plan in mind to redeem their sin, to pay the penalty for it so that we could live again - through Jesus' death on the cross.  

From the beginning, God planned to make amends for their sin, incorporating it into His plans, but He did not plan their sin or cause them to sin.  Contrary to what my Calvinist pastor says, God did not want them to fall.



You see, in Calvinism, God can want one thing, even "decree" one thing, but cause the opposite.  He decrees people to disobey His decrees.  And yes, Calvinists will say this outright with a straight face, seeing nothing wrong with it.  

They simply say, "Well, God has two different Wills that oppose each other."  So He can say He wants Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit, even commanding them to not eat the fruit, and yet turn around and cause them to eat the fruit.  And they think this is okay, that God can be like this and still be considered righteous and just and trustworthy.  "After all," they say, "He is mysterious and causes everything that happens for His pleasure and glory, so it's okay."  

But is it really okay?  Is it righteous to cause people to sin, to give them no ability to obey?  Is it justice to cause someone to break your commandments and then to punish them for it?  Can someone who says they want you to do one thing when they really want you to do (and cause you to do) the opposite be considered trustworthy?  How then can we trust anything God commands us to do when He might really want us to sin and break His commands, "for His pleasure and glory"?  Isn't our sin then glorifying to God, just as much as our obedience?  What difference then is there between sin and obedience, evil and good?    

This wouldn't be God being "mysterious."  

It would be God being a horrible, lying, unrighteous, unjust, untrustworthy monster who wants people in hell, who lies to them, who is pleased when people sin, and who causes them to disobey Him just so He can send them to hell because it brings Him some kind of sick glory.  And that's not okay!  

And, I wonder then, what difference is there really between Satan and Calvi-god?

Throughout history, persecuted Christians praise God and give Him glory in spite of sin and suffering.  But Calvinism praises God and gives Him glory for sin and suffering.  

(FYI, Calvinists will say, "We don't say God causes sin."  And they're right ... they don't SAY it.  In fact, they find all sorts of ways to hide it.  But their theology does indeed believe it, when you cut through all the layers they cover it up with!)

But thank God that this is not really how the God of the Bible is.  It's just how Calvinism's god is.  And Calvi-god is NOT the God of the Bible.

Calvinism does great harm to God's character and truth, while claiming that they are truly honoring and glorifying Him above all!  

It's demonic, that's what it is.  Flipping the Gospel and God's character on its head, reversing everything God said, and then claiming that it's everyone else who's wrong, that they are the ones who are "only preaching right from the Scriptures and glorifying God the way He should be glorified."



Anyway, let's get back on track.  I bring up this question because people want to know why a good God would allow evil if God is all-powerful and can stop it.  

The problem, from the very beginning, is two-fold.  First, they are assuming that an all-powerful God has to always be using His power all the time to cause/control everything that happens ... or else He's not God.  And they assume that God has to always step in to stop the bad things from happening ... or else He's not good.  They assume that this is the only way a "good, sovereign God" can act.

(However, it's funny how most people don't want God's interference when things are going good in their lives, when they've got things under control and are getting what they want, but the minute something goes wrong, they blame Him.  They give no credit to Him for the good things in their lives, but give Him all the credit for the bad.  And this is not right!  No wonder God sometimes leaves us to ourselves, to make our own messes.  Because we've ignored Him or told Him to "Get Out!" our whole lives.)

But they are letting their assumptions about God control their view of God.  They have decided that God has to be who they think He is ... or else He can't be God.  And so the problem is not with God, it's with us.  (You'd be amazed at all the assumptions you have about God, if you just stopped to think about it and pray about it.)
  
But this is not how God is, according to the Bible.  

God is indeed good and all-powerful, but He has chosen to give people free-will, a lot of room to make decisions, even bad ones.  And with this freedom comes great responsibility and cause-and-effect.  We are responsible for so much that happens in this world.  It's not God's fault.  

And He has decided, as part of letting us have this real freedom and responsibility, to allow things to happen, to let our choices affect things to a large degree.  He has chosen to give us freedom to make choices ... and He lets us face the consequences of our choices, good or bad.  

This doesn't make Him "not good."  It makes Him wise and fair.  He lets us make real decisions that have real consequences, and He let's us face the real consequences, not often sparing us from them.  

I think if we are abiding in Him daily and being faithful to Him, He protects us much more than if we are living apart from Him.  And He does this because we've invited Him into our daily lives, we are sensitive to His leading and doing our best to live obediently.  And if we are walking in His Will for us, the way He wants us to live, He has His hand of protection over us.  But if we have walked away from Him, we remove ourselves from His protection and He does not necessarily protect us from the bad consequences.  

The safest spot to be is close to Lord, walking in obedience to Him, abiding in Him daily.   

That's what His Word is all about.  What the need for obedience is all about.  It's about helping us live as He knows is best so that we can have the best life possible, good consequences instead of bad.  He has written down all we need to do, the ways we need to live to have the best life.  It's all there in His Word, if we want it.  And He is there for all of us, if we want Him.



But we don't want to hear what He has to say.  We don't want to obey His rules or change our ways or serve any other "Lord" but ourselves.  We want to do what we want without any of the responsibility.  We want to make our own decisions and live life our own way, but then we want Him to step in and spare us from any unpleasant consequences of our decisions.  

But we can't have it both ways.  Freedom without responsibility.  Making choices without consequences.

And while God has tried to spare us the negative consequence by telling us how to live in His Word, He still does step in to help when we call on Him, even when we make a mess of our lives.  That's what forgiveness and grace and mercy is for, to pick us up when we fall apart and to help put us back together again.  

But He will let us make a mess of our lives and face the unpleasant consequences if we reject His help, if we don't want Him in our lives, and if that's what it takes to get us to call on Him, to realize we need Him, that we can't handle life on our own.

Does a parent step in to fix all the consequences of a child's bad choices?  Do they smooth out every path for the child so that the child faces no trouble in their life, no bad results of their behavior?  What would we say about such parents?  What kind of people do those kids grow up to be?

We all know there is wisdom in letting people face the consequences of their choices, to a degree.  And yet for some reason, we expect God to step in and fix every mistake for us, to never let our behavior or choices have any bad consequences for us.  We sure do like having our freedom, don't we?  But the minute we have to face an unpleasant consequence of our choice, we blame God.  For the things we caused.  This is us being "not good," not God.



[And unfortunately, part of having the ability to make real choices is that people can make real choices that hurt others.  This is something God never wanted, something He tries to prevent by telling us over and over again in His Word how we should live, how we should treat others, how we should raise our kids, etc.  But we don't listen.  And so we - not He - cause problems and pain for other people.  

But God, in His love, is always ready to help anyone who's been hurt and who calls on Him for help.  But He will let us live apart from Him if we want to.  He'll let us try to fix our hurts ourselves, creating more problems in our lives.  Because He didn't create robots who had to do things His Way, who are forced to love Him and worship Him.  Where is the glory in forcing someone to love you?  He created people with free-will because He wants a relationship with people who genuinely want to be with Him, who choose of their own free-will to love Him and obey Him, not who are forced to.  

And this is something Calvinists get wrong.  God is not just a supreme, way-up-high, too-far-above-us, sovereign God.  He is a relational Being who wants a real relationship with people.  He doesn't just want glory and praise.  He wants our love, real love.  And He wants us to let Him love us.  

Why else do you think God chose to come down here, into our messy world, becoming like one of us mere humans, when He could have just stayed up there, surrounded Himself with a bunch of robot-people, and pulled strings in our backs that made us worship Him?

Calvinists elevate God's sovereignty so high, to unbiblical levels, that they do great damage to God's love and His desire for a relationship with His creation.]



Another problem, particularly for Calvinists, is that they take one verse - Proverbs 21:1: "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases." - and they say, "See, God controls all our choices, even our bad ones."  And then they define God and misinterpret the rest of the Bible through their bad understanding of this verse.

But the Bible overall shows us a very different picture of how God has chosen to be.  And in the Bible, He doesn’t use His power to control our choices.  (He uses His power to cause us to make our choice and to work our choices into His plans, but not to control our choices.)  

He has allowed us to make our own real decisions, even bad ones ... and He allows there to be real consequences to our decisions.  And this is why bad things happen.  Because of us, our choices, the Fall of Adam and Eve, Satan and demons, and the deterioration of the natural world after Adam and Eve sinned.  

However, if Calvinism is true about God predestining/causing/controlling everything that happens, then how did these verses get into the Bible: 
            
1 Kings 20:42: "He said to the king, 'This is what the Lord says: 'You have set free a man I had determined should die.''"  
            
Hosea 8:4 (God's words): "They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval."  
            
Jeremiah 19:5 (God's own words): "They have built the high places to Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind."  
            
Isaiah 30:1: "Woe to the obstinate children," declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine..."  
            
Psalm 33:10: "The Lord foils the plans of the nations ..."  (If all plans are God's plans, and if we can only plan what God causes us to plan, then isn't God foiling His own plans here?) 
            
Acts 14:16: "In the past, he [God] let nations go their own way."  (Impossible ... if every way is God's preplanned way!)
            
And if God alone controls every single movement His creation makes, then why would He need to give "boundaries" to people, Satan, and nature (such as putting a boundary around the one forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, and putting a limit on how far the sea can move in Job 38:11, and putting a hedge around Job and limits to how much Satan can do to him in Job 1)?  Boundaries are only needed when there is freedom to move within those boundaries.
            
I have never yet heard a Calvinist give an answer for these verses.  At least one that makes sense, one that doesn't resort to, "Well, we can't understand it anyway because God is mysterious.  And God can have two Wills that oppose each other, so He can want one thing but cause the opposite.  Who are you to think you can understand God or talk back to Him?"  (Yeah, but in Calvinism, even our talking back to Him would be "controlled" by Him, so then He is really just talking back to Himself.)

Look at all the nonsense they weave - the theological twisting they do - to make the Bible fit with their wrong theology, instead of simply correcting their wrong theology to fit the plain, simple, consistent, easily-understood message of the Bible!  They take a vague verse from a poetic "wise sayings" book of the Bible, like Proverbs 21:1, and base everything on that, instead of basing their views on what God said about Himself through the prophets in verses like the ones above.



God is indeed all-powerful and in-control, but contrary to what Calvinism teaches, He has chosen to not always use His power to control everything.  He has chosen to give us a certain amount of real freedom and real responsibility.  And we mess it up time and time again.  And that's why bad things happen.  

But God, in His goodness, is always ready to step in and help us when we call on Him.  He walks through the pain with us.  He holds us up when we can't stand anymore.  He hurts when we hurt, even if we caused our pain ourselves.  He promises to work good out of the bad for those who love Him.  And He will eventually right all wrongs, redeem all the brokenness in this world that resulted from our sin, and get rid of all sin, death, and tears forever.  

In fact, even before He made us, before we sinned, He planned to pay the price for our sins.  Jesus came to earth so that He could die in our place, to pay the penalty for our sins, so that we could be forgiven and have eternal life.  He did not have to love us that much.  He did not have to leave heaven and put on human skin and die a violent death for people who ignore Him, reject Him, mock Him.  He could have left us to face the consequences of our choices with no hope of redemption, forgiveness, grace, or healing, instead of coming down to our messy world and taking our sins upon Himself on the cross so that we could live.

But He did it anyway.  Because He loves us.  Just because He does.  Because He wants us all with Him in heaven for all of eternity.

And I'd say that makes Him very good!



The twisted thing is that Calvinists will say we make "real choices," right after saying that God sovereignly controls everything that happens.  

But, you see, in Calvinism we can only make the choices that go with the desires of the nature God gave us.  This means that if He predestined you to have the "sinner/unrepentant" nature, then you can only and always desire to sin, which means you can only and always choose to sin.  There are no other options available to you.  

But Calvinists still say, with complete sincerity, that you made a "real choice" to sin (to reject God) because you "desired" to do it, even though you could only desire to sin and only choose to sin, because Calvi-god caused you to be this way because he predestined you to hell.  

Basically, Calvi-god tells you that you have to pick a door.  But he only puts one door - the "sin door" - in front of you.  There are no other doors to choose from.  And he gives you the desire to walk through that door, and only that door.  You have no desires to resist it or to choose good or to want another door.  And since you are a "slave" to your Calvi-god-given desires, you have to walk through the "sin door."  But because you "desired" to walk through the sin door, Calvinists say that you "freely chose what you wanted to do," even though you had no real choice because there were no other options.  And they call this "making your own choice" and so, therefore, you "deserve the punishment you get for choosing to sin."  It's sick and twisted!  It really is!

Folks, this is Calvinism!  And it is a different gospel than the Bible.  It is a different God, a different Jesus, a different way to salvation, etc.  And this makes it evil!



But in the Bible, in example after example, God has chosen to not control everything.  He has chosen to give us a wide range of options, all of which we are capable of choosing, and He lets us decide what we want to do.  And so when we sin, it's because we truly chose it, over any other choices we could have made.  And so we bring about the consequences of our bad choices.  God is not responsible for them; we are.  

Of course, everything that happens has to go through Him first, such as how Satan and demons tempt people and which consequences to allow and which to not allow.  But I think, more often than not, God lets things take their own "natural" course.  I don't think He steps in and controls things nearly as much as we think He does.  He lets things run their course, having given much room and "authority" and responsibility over to us.  But He is always watching over it all, deciding what to allow and what to block and how to work things into His plans.

But until God redeems it all, we will have to face all the things brought on by our own choices, by other people, by the Fall, and by Satan: natural disasters, illnesses, death, heartache, trauma, etc.  

But just because God doesn’t step in and take away all the consequences from our choices (individual choices and mankind’s choices) doesn’t mean that He wants all these bad things to happen.  I think it breaks His heart to see what we’ve done to His creation and to ourselves.  And once again, in the end, He will redeem it all.  (This isn’t to say that He doesn’t step in and help from time to time, in answer to our prayers.  If we pray anything in line with His Will, He will do it.  It’s just that not everything we ask for is in His Will for us.)



As I said, I think people (Calvinists) mistakenly believe that because God is all-powerful and sovereign, it means that He micromanages every detail, that He causes everything that happens.  

Those who think this way then have the burden of explaining why bad things happen and why people sin without sounding like they are accusing God of causing sin and evil.  

(This is what causes all the nonsensical, round-and-round, Calvinist rambling, with a bunch of verses taken out of context.  Deep down, they know their theology says God is the cause of all evil and sin, but they have to find ways to make it sound like they're not saying it.  But from the beginning, it's their own mistaken view of sovereignty that causes their problems.  See "What Does 'God is Sovereign' Mean?" for more on this.)  

            
However, when it comes to sin, Scripture (James 1:13-14) says that God does not tempt anyone to sin.  Yet obviously people sin.  But if God is not responsible for people’s sin, who is?  

Well, Satan and people, obviously. 

            
“Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.”

            
This would be the clearest, simplest, most biblical way to view it.  That people desire to sin and choose to sin all on their own, not that God causes them to desire to sin or choose to sin.  That would be adding things to Scripture that aren't there, basing it on their own Calvinist assumptions.  

[Calvinists find a few random verses that could seem slightly Calvinistic, take them out of context, and then use them to reinterpret other verses to say things they aren't saying, instead of just reading the verses as God wrote them.  People have to be taught to see Calvinism in the Bible, because it isn't there if you read it plainly, as it is written.  Calvinism is a big web of cleverly cobbled-together verses that they alter and take out of context and read into and add double layers to, and this traps many well-meaning Christians, training them to see Calvinism in the Bible even though it contradicts the simple, plain reading of it.  It takes a wise, strong person, caught in the web of Calvinism, to say, "I want to know what the Bible says without my own Calvinist assumptions getting in the way, even if it means learning I've been wrong this whole time."]

If, as Calvinists believe, God causes everything that happens then He is indeed responsible for making us sin, despite their desperate attempts to cover it up. 

            
But God truly isn't responsible for our sin because He truly gave us the right and responsibility to make our own choices.  And so when we sin, it’s not because God wanted it to happen.  It's because we chose it.  And God lets things happen that He doesn’t want to have happen, because that's a natural, unavoidable result of giving people free-will. 

(And yet, I think He is much more active in this world than many of us realize!  If we all could see just how much He does "behind the scenes", in the spiritual world, while we are ignoring Him and busily going about our day, we might be shocked into belief.)

God doesn’t like sin.  He doesn’t want sin.  He doesn’t cause us to sin.  He didn’t cause us to ruin His perfect creation.  But He allowed it.  And this doesn’t mean He is less powerful or less sovereign or at our mercy or under our control.  It just means that He has voluntarily restrained Himself and His power, choosing instead to given certain rights and privileges and responsibilities to mankind.  Because that's how He wanted things to be.  Because the only way for people to be able to willingly choose to love Him and obey Him and worship Him is if they truly have the choice to choose what they want, which necessarily comes with the choice to choose wrong.  

And that is a sobering thought!

But in no way does it diminish His strength or His God-ness.  He is still sovereign.  He is still in control over all (just not controlling all).  And in His sovereignty, He promises to weave all the bad into something good, for those of us who love Him.  He is still on the throne!




Added Post:
Now, I know this was a really long post already, but I am going to add this other post of mine because it fits right in here (there will be some repeated information because this is a separate post, and I made a few minor changes in it here, and the color change between gray and black wasn't intentional but I can't undo it for some reason):

"Are Tragedies Gifts From God?"

James 1:2-4:  “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

I am reading a book right now by a woman who lost her mother to cancer.  And she is struggling with Christians (Calvinists?) telling her that all trials and tragedies are “gifts from God, meant for our good” and that we are to be thankful for them.

Are we really supposed to accept infertility, fatal car accidents, chronically-ill children, divorce, disease, cancer, natural disasters, the death of loved ones, etc. as “gifts from God” that He has deliberately given us for our good?  Are we required to push away any pain or heartache or frustration and just "be happy and thankful" because these are “gifts from God”?

I would say “No”!

It seems to me that many Christians feel that it is the “good Christian’s” duty to thankfully accept trials and tragedies because “God made this happen for your own good.”  And we are to never get doubtful or upset or angry because that wouldn’t be showing faith and trust and thankfulness.  Because God obviously knows what He’s doing, and He did this on purpose for our spiritual best.  Right?

You know something what was a surprising realization to me?

"Everything happens for a reason" is not a verse from the Bible.

Neither is "God causes everything for a reason."

Yes, I believe God knows what He's doing ... and He works everything together for good ... and He is wise and sovereign in whatever He allows to happen ... and we can and should find things to be thankful for in all situations ... and we can consider it joy that trials will strengthen our faith.

But I do not think it's right or biblical to make people feel like they have to be "happy" about tragedies, that they have to thank God for them because He "did it to them on purpose."  This is where things get messy and wrong.

Personally, I think this "God did it to you on purpose" thing is a Calvinist idea, stemming from their wrong view of God's sovereignty, that God causes all things on purpose for His glory and His plans.  But they are wrong.  And they do great damage to the Gospel and the character of God, and they end up destroying people's hearts, faith, and trust in God!

Remember that pain, death, and decay were curses that came as a result of man’s disobedience in the Garden.  These were not part of God’s original plan for us, His best plan for us.  We brought them into the picture, consequences of the Fall, of mankind's bad choices.  They are not “gifts from God.”  In fact, God warned Adam and Eve not to eat from Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil so that He could spare us from knowing what evil was.  But we ate from the tree anyway, and God allowed us to face the consequence of our choices.

The Fall wasn't His best plan for us.

The Fall ruined His best plan for us.

And yet from the beginning, in His wisdom and sovereignty, He knew how He would incorporate the Fall into His plans and turn it into something good.  But it involved Him leaving heaven, putting on frail human skin, and dying a horrible death on the cross that He didn't deserve so that He could take our place and pay the penalty that we owe for our sins.  But He loved us enough to do it, even though we rebelled from Him and made a mess of His world.  But thank God that He's in the business of helping us clean up our messes!



Also, in the Bible, we read often of tragedies, disasters, and war as being a punishment from God or discipline to get people back on the right track.  In the Old Testament, God oftentimes set out a “blessing path” and a “curse path.”  And He says that the people are to choose which path they want to take.  Obedience will lead them down the “blessing path” and disobedience leads them down the “curse path.”  And so, many tragedies were the result of the people choosing disobedience.

In our day, we have sexually-transmitted diseases brought on by sexual sin, broken hearts and shattered children created by divorce, devastated spouses because of affairs, financial ruin because of poor choices, unhealthy bodies because of poor eating habits, ruined lives and bodies because of irresponsibility and human evil, natural disasters and genetic problems because sin was introduced into the world and ruined God’s perfect creation, etc.  And I do not think we can rightly call these kinds of things “gifts from God.”

While many Christians believe that God causes everything that happens for a reason, I think it is more accurate to say that, in general, He “allows” things to happen for a reason.  I know it seems like a minor distinction: cause or allow.  But to the hurting person, there is a big difference between the two, one that can drastically affect our view of God.

(And if it does, in fact, bring you more comfort to think He causes all tragedies for a reason, then keep thinking that.  I am writing this for the people who don’t find comfort in that idea, the ones whose faith is faltering or shattered because they've been told that God caused the bad things that happened to them, the ones who are hurting on the inside but trying to put on a "good Christian" smile on the outside so that they don't offend God.  You don't have to accept the idea that God is always the cause of all bad things.  That is a misrepresentation of God and of how He works.)

To say “cause” means that God deliberately makes each heartache, trial, tragedy, and sin happen.  But this does not take into account the fall of man, the fall of God’s perfect creation, personal disobedience, bad choices, human carelessness, and Satan, the instigator of all things evil.

But to say “allow” reminds us that bad things happen as a result of the Fall and of Satan and of our own choices and sins.

[To be accurate, sometimes God might actually cause things we consider "bad," maybe natural disasters or illnesses or something like that.  (But He never causes sin or unbelief or causes us to do things He commands us not to do.  He can cause us pain in various ways for His plans for us and yet still be considered good and trustworthy.  But He cannot cause us to sin or be wicked and yet still be considered good and trustworthy.  So when a Calvinist points out a Bible verse where God controls the weather and says, "See, the Bible shows God controls even the weather, and so that means He controls all things, including our decisions," point out the difference between God causing the weather to do something bad and God causing people to sin.  One doesn't destroy His character and one does.  One is taught in Scripture and one isn't.)

But we can't know when He's just allowed something to happen or when He caused something to happen.  And my point here is about not letting someone convince you that God definitely caused whatever tragedy you faced and so you have to be thankful for it and happy about it (but we should learn from it and grow through it), or else you're being a "bad Christian."  That adds a huge painful burden to an already hurting person.

Healing and perspective and peace come in time, but they will have a much harder time coming if you feel you have to hide your bad feelings and thoughts from God.  When there are bad feelings, don't stuff them or feel guilty about them or force yourself to "be happy."  That only makes things worse.  Instead, be real with God about them.  Pour out your pain to Him.  Your questions.  He can handle your pain and doubts and even your anger.  He understands and wants to help.  And this is the quicker road to healing.  Besides, He already knows all that we're thinking and feeling anyway, so we are not fooling Him by hiding it.  We are just putting up walls between Him and us, preventing His love from healing our broken hearts.]



In the book of Job, Satan asked to test Job.  And God gave Satan a boundary (such as “Do not touch Job himself”), but He allowed Satan a certain “free reign” to cause trouble within that boundary.  God allowed Satan to choose the tragedies and cause the tragedies.  And while He did not specifically cause them Himself or choose which tragedies to give Job, He was aware of everything that happened and He allowed it.  And the reason He allowed these tragedies was because He knew that they would be used for His glory and that He could make something good out of them for Job’s sake and for the sake of mankind.

Everything that Satan wants to do to us has to get God’s consent first (at least I think this is how it works, although I haven't found a verse that says this, just the example of Satan messing with Job).  Everything that happens to us and on this earth goes through Him first.  And while He doesn’t always specifically choose which tragedies to give us, He does decide what to allow and what to not allow.  And everything that God allows He does so because He knows how He can weave it into something good in our lives and for His glory.

This still might not comfort people all that much - thinking that God could have stopped the tragedy but didn't - but it is biblical.  It shows how bad things happen but God can still be considered a good God.  (And contrary to what Calvinists say, knowing what will happen but not stopping it is NOT the same thing as causing it to happen or predestining it to happen.  In the first one God is not the reason for or cause of the bad thing, but in the second one He is.  And this is a big difference, especially when that bad thing is a sin or evil thing.)

God doesn't always cause the tragedies.  He has allowed people to affect His world, to affect others, to affect their own lives.  He has given us choices and a responsibility over what happens in this world.  So not everything that happens is His fault or His doing.  Many times, it's ours.  God wants and commands us to do the right thing but He lets us make our own choices.  And bad things can happen as a result of our choices.  And when they do, He hurts with us because pain and tragedy and heartache were never part of His plan for us.  And yet He will eventually work all bad things into something good, right all wrongs, and heal it all in the end.

A God like this - one who doesn't want us to make bad choices and who never wanted pain for us, but who lets us make decisions and affect things, and yet promises to work it all into something good - is a God that can still be trusted, even when things go wrong.

But if God is the cause of all evil - of all sin and wickedness - then He would be a Monster God, causing us to do the things He commands us not to do and then turning around and punishing us for it.  This is the Calvinist God!  A God who is not just or righteous or trustworthy or truly loving.  Not when He causes the sins He forbids, and then punishes us for committing the sins He caused us to do.  Not when He causes wicked things "for His glory."  It's nonsense!  And it shows why a correct view of God and how He works is so important.  It deeply affects our faith and our relationship with God.



Yes, God is all-powerful and He could prevent any and every tragedy from happening.  And yes, God is all-loving and wants the best for us.  But I believe God has decided to voluntarily limit His use of power.  He will not (generally) over-ride our right to make choices.  He allows us the option to disobey, to bring pain and consequences on ourselves, because He gave us the right to choose Him or to reject Him.

[And He gave us this right because He doesn’t want to spend eternity with robots who are forced to choose Him and love Him.  He wants to spend eternity with those who want to love Him and who voluntarily choose Him.  And any of us can understand that because we all want to be with people who want to be with us, not who are forced to be with us.  Why would God be any different, especially given that we were made in His image?  Would we be pleased with and glorified by people loving us only because they were forced to, because they had no other choice?  Then why do Calvinists think God would be?]

But unfortunately, free-will comes with painful consequences when we choose to disobey, which started at the Fall in the Garden when Satan gained a certain level of power and control over the earth, because we gave it to him when we listened to him over God, bringing with it curses against our bodies, our health, nature, and our relationship with God.

God gave Adam and Eve the command to “not eat the fruit of the tree” and He warns all people to “choose obedience over disobedience” because He wants to spare us negative consequences, pain, and heartbreak.  I think it causes God pain, too, to see us hurt.  He never intended that this was the way it should be when He first created the world.

But our gracious God, however, has not abandoned us to our sin and bad choices, even if He does allow tragedies.  He will walk with us through them and bring good out of them and turn them into something eternally-good.  And we can trust Him for that!  And He offers salvation and forgiveness and wants us to grasp how great His love is for us so we can have the kind of eternity in the end that we were originally made for, even if He won’t protect us from the consequences of sin right now.



When it comes to many of the bad things that happen in life, I think it’s more likely that God is “allowing” them, not necessarily “causing” them.

[But if you are living a disobedient life, God may indeed cause/allow bad things to happen to get you back on track, as He did in the Old Testament.  So don’t just think it’s “bad luck.”  It may just be God disciplining you and calling you back to Him.  Causing you pain to correct your waywardness.  It’s not out of the realm of possibility.]

Sometimes accidents are accidents.  And tragedies just happen.  Not because God caused them but because they are part of the fallen world.  And God has allowed them as consequences of our personal choices and of mankind’s fall.  But if He has allowed them, we can trust that He has His reasons, that He will carry us through it, and that He will work it into something good.

Personally, I think God sits back to watch what we will do much more than we realize, much more than Calvinists say.  They think He micromanages everything, that everything that happens is because He caused it to happen.  But I think that He watches over all things but doesn't always intervene.  Sometimes He does, of course, if there is something specific He wants to do or if we call on Him for help.  And sometimes He intervenes to discipline.  But I think there are a lot of other times when God simply watches to see what we will do, if we will pray and invite Him into our circumstances, if we will call on Him, if we want Him in our lives or not, if we will obey or disobey, etc.

This is one reason why prayer is so important.  It's calling on God, inviting Him into our world, into our circumstances.  I think, in general, God has chosen to let us decide if we want Him in our world, in our lives, or not.  And He will generally wait to be invited in.  So much of the wickedness and tragedies we see around us are because people have chosen to live life without God.  We don't call on Him.  We don't seek His help.  We don't live obediently.  We live our own little lives without Him.  We don't even thank Him for the blessings and health and basic essentials we would die without.

But then ... when things go wrong ... we turn on Him and blame Him and accuse Him of causing the bad things, of not being there for us.  But all along, it was simply that we never invited Him into our worlds.  We kept Him out.  We ignored Him - our good heavenly Father who is so willing to step in and help and heal, if only we would invite Him in!

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."  (2 Chronicles 7:14)



Tragedy is not a gift.  Death is not a gift.  It is an enemy.  The enemy that will be the last one to be destroyed in the end.  (Revelation 20:14)  (And yet, even though it was a curse, death is also kind of a gift, looking at it from a purely human perspective.  Because if mankind was able to live forever after the Fall, we would be in a fallen state eternally.  Death is what releases us from that fallen state, bringing us into the perfect eternal state we were meant for.  If you are a believer!  Because it ushers us from the broken, fallen, decaying body to eternal life in heaven with Christ.  So while death itself is not a blessing, there is a great blessing after death for those who trust in the Lord.)

The “gift” isn’t the tragedies and trials; it’s the good that God creates out of the tragedies and trials and the strength that He gives us to get through them.  The “gift” isn’t the test; it’s the character development, spiritual development, and wisdom that grow from the test.  The “gift” is God walking with us through the hard times and using them to mature our faith, to grow our trust in Him, to soften our hearts to the pain of others, to make us more compassionate people, to help us sort out our priorities, to humble us at His feet, and to create a more glorious eternity for us.

This is what we can be thankful for.  These, not the tragedies, are the gifts from God!



[I was FURIOUS after hearing our Calvinist pastor give a sermon about how all the bad things, the tragedies, in your life were "ordained" by God - as in "planned and caused by God" - for your good and His glory and to humble you.  Even, he said, childhood abuse.

WHAT!?!  WHAT THE #$@%!?!

I ... WAS ... LIVID!  Still am!  (It's why I bring it up so much.)  How wretched to tell hurting, abused people that God caused their abuse, that He wanted it to happen to them, and that they simply have to trust that He had His reasons and that He did it out love and for their best and for His glory.

FRICKIN' HOGWASH!!!

That was the sermon when I decided I was done with that pastor!  I will not listen to someone preaching such wretched lies - which is what I believe Calvinism is - about the God I love and trust!

But, I digress.  So calming down now ... getting back to the issue at hand ...]



We shouldn’t scold them to “be thankful for the tragedy, not sad, because God did this for your own good.”

We can't know which things God caused and which He just allowed (but we know He doesn't cause sin!).  But we can come alongside hurting people to offer help, prayers, and a shoulder to lean on.  We can cry with them.  We can say, "This really sucks."  We can remind them that God will walk with them through the pain, that He will bring good out of the bad someday, that He can be trusted no matter what, that He hurts with them, and that someday God will make all wrongs right again.

Romans 8:28:  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

During the tragedy, we might not be able to see or understand the blessings that can come out of it.  All we see is the pain.  And we might not be able to find any joy or hidden blessings in it yet.  (That usually comes a lot later.)

During the tragedy, when the pain is fresh and new, is not usually the time to focus on "being thankful and counting your blessings."  Polishing up that "good Christian" mask.  Trying to talk yourself into a better mood.

It's the time to pour out your pain to the Lord, to throw yourself at His feet in despair and humility, to tell Him that you have no strength left to face the day, to fall apart in His arms.

And that’s okay.  It's okay to fall apart in front of the One who can put you back together again.  And God understands that we are human and that we hurt.  He can handle our anger and pain and fear.  He can handle "the real you."  He wants the real you.  He wants you to need Him, to be real with Him, and to open all hurting parts of your heart up to Him.  He wants you to invite Him into your life.

Counting the blessings and seeing the good and being thankful will come later.  But you don’t have to worry about polishing up your “joyful, good-Christian mask” when you are in the midst of deep heartache.  During the pain, just fall on Him and cry and know that He can handle the doubts and anger and pain.  Know that He hurts with you and for you and that someday He will make everything right again.  Be honest with Him about your pain and keep your heart open to Him.  This is what will grow your faith and help you persevere and help you eventually say, “It is well with my soul.  Whether You give or take away, blessed be Your name.”

And eventually, if you continue to draw nearer to Him instead of pulling away, there will be a deep peace, even in the midst of ache.  There will be a deep joy rooted in God and not in life’s circumstances, even if you are not “happy.”  And there will be a sweetness (a bittersweetness) in your soul, where you will be able to thank God for the things you learned during the painful trials.

And those will be the gifts!  Blessings in disguise!

Psalm 86:1-6:  “Hear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.... Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I call to you all day long.  Bring joy to your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.  You are forgiving and good, O Lord, abounding in love to all who call on you.  Hear my prayer, O Lord; listen to my cry for mercy.”

Psalm 34:17-18: “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.  The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Romans 8:28:  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” 

For the posts in this series, see the "Understanding God's Will" label in the sidebar (or find the original series, without the Calvinism info, by clicking here).