UGW #11a: Does Everything Happen For A Reason?
Understanding God's Will #11:
But doesn't everything happen for a reason? Don’t you think that God could’ve caused bad things to happen for a reason, even if He didn’t really want them to happen?
But doesn't everything happen for a reason? Don’t you think that God could’ve caused bad things to happen for a reason, even if He didn’t really want them to happen?
Sometimes, maybe. I wish that I could say no ... and yes. No, because I don’t want to think that God causes bad things to happen. And yes, because I want to believe that all bad things have a purpose and that He is in total control. It makes the bad things a lot easier to face then. (And for the record, I think that our view of what’s “bad” can and does differ from God’s. Our perspective is so, so cloudy and flawed compared to God’s.)
I think that the Bible does show times when He causes something “bad” for a reason (but He never causes sin or evil). Sometimes it’s because of discipline and judgment, such as when He causes rebellious nations to be overthrown and destroyed. And sometimes it’s to gain glory for Himself, such as when He hemmed the Israelites in by the Sea with Pharaoh’s army closing in on them. That would seem pretty bad to me, but He did that so that He could show His power and gain glory for Himself. He even hardened Pharaoh’s heart to get this done. (But, importantly, He only hardened Pharaoh's heart after Pharaoh chose to repeatedly harden it himself first. In the concordance, "hardens" is a punishment for first hardening our own hearts, resisting God's patience and love and correction. Basically, biblically, when God hardens someone's heart He is simply giving that person what they want, what they chose, and making it permanent.)
Exodus 14:4: “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.”
(And contrary to Calvinism's belief that God preplanned to harden Pharaoh's heart through no fault or choice of Pharaoh's, the reason God says here that He will harden Pharaoh's heart in the future is because He already knows that Pharaoh will choose to be hard-hearted. And God has already decided to make Pharaoh's decision permanent so that He can use it for His plans. The fault lies with Pharaoh choosing to be hard-hearted, not with God choosing to make Pharaoh hard-hearted all on His own. God simply chose to give Pharaoh what he wanted, permanently, and to use it for His plans. Big difference!)
It seems that whatever “bad” He does cause is because He has to discipline, to pass judgment, to gain glory for Himself, to maintain His good name, or because He has a greater good in mind. (And once you really get a glimpse of God’s holiness and glory, you know that it’s only right that He is glorified, even if it takes “bad” times to do it.)
But when we ask this question, what we really want to know is if He causes the tsunamis or cancer or an accident or a death for a particular reason. “Everything happens for a reason” is our way of dealing with these things.
And the answer is ... I don’t know. He probably causes some of them. But He doesn’t run His reasons past us, and so we can’t get hung up on figuring out something that is not ours to know.
[And we cannot dare make any judgments or pronouncements about tragedies that happen, saying things like “God brought that disaster on you (or your city) because of your (or your city’s) sin.”
How dare any Christian act as though they know for sure what was going on in God’s mind when He allowed a certain tragedy to happen! It is smug, self-elevating, condescending pride that causes one to sit on God’s throne and point fingers. Where is the humility and grace in that? It certainly doesn’t sound to me like it comes from a godly heart. (We can call people to draw near to God during times of tragedy, to seek a relationship with Him, His forgiveness and grace and mercy, but we cannot say for sure that we know their sins brought that tragedy about.)
I just have to say this for the record because it makes me sick when I hear smug, judgmental Christians acting like know-it-all “moral police officers” who think of themselves as God’s little enforcers sent to scold and condemn everyone else, who act as though they are not also sinners in need of grace and forgiveness, who fail to extend to others the grace and forgiveness that God has given us, who fail to humble themselves before God while they try to weasel their way onto the throne right next to Him.
Christians, there is a reason why society can’t stand us sometimes. And sometimes it doesn’t have anything to do with our beliefs but with the fact that we try to force them on others, that we use our faith against others in judgmental condescension, and that we act like we have some special inside-information from God, above and beyond what the Bible says, when we really don't.
We are called to live out our faith in love and grace and humility, with the hope of drawing others to Christ through these things. And yet, we turn it into an “us against them” kind of thing. But “they” are not the enemy. They are the people that God dearly loves and wants to draw near to Himself. Yet we push them away by our lack of grace and gentleness and love.
But we are all on the same level-ground at the foot of the cross. And God is the judge, not us. So let us reach out to others in love, live out our faith in gentle, quiet strength, humble ourselves before God, and remember that others are not accountable to us. We will all stand before Him one day and give an account for how we lived. So let’s be more concerned with how we are living before the Lord than with how others are living before the Lord. I just have to say this because Christian history is full of terrible examples of what happens when we forget all of this.]
But yes, everything does happen for a reason.
And now I’m going to branch off a moment from those tragedies that we are not responsible for, like natural disasters, accidents, etc. And I’m going to say this: Sometimes the reason bad things happen has less to do with God and more to do with us. Sometimes it’s because we disobeyed, chose our own path, chose unwisely, or sinned. It is amazing how we will live life however we want, but then the moment something goes wrong, we go, “Oh, God, why? Why did You let this happen?”
We have sex outside of marriage and get pregnant, get an STD, or have future marital problems, and we go, “Why, God?”
We have affairs or don’t work to keep our marriages healthy and strong, and it’s, “Why are we facing divorce?”
We don’t care what we eat or if we exercise, but then we plead with God, “Why are we sick?”
We fill our homes with all sorts of toxins, like candles, air “fresheners,” chemical cleaners, and then go, “Why aren’t You healing my breathing problems or allergies?”
We sit on our rear-ends all day, eating our take-out food, and then ask God why we have heart problems, fatty stomachs, costly medication, and shortened life spans.
We text, drink, or talk on our phones while driving, and then cry, “Where were You when this accident happened, God?”
We pursue whatever makes us happy and the success and attention we crave in whatever way we want, and then when we are still not satisfied and life doesn't turn out the way we want, we complain, “Why are You doing this to me, God? Don't You just want me to be happy?”
I mean, think about how many times we say things like, “Well, I know that I should ... but ...” I’ve said things like this myself. And we close our eyes to the things that we should be doing and should be concerned about, and we continue to live the way that we want. And then when we face consequences later, we blame God, when - more accurately - we should be saying, “I caused this by my bad decisions or by ignoring my responsibility to make wise, self-controlled choices.” If we started to take responsibility for our decisions and actions, maybe we wouldn’t have so many problems in our lives.
So yes, things do happen for a reason ...
and sometimes that reason is us!
(I'm not going to repost 11b, c, or d, because it's just some advice on some specific "take responsibility for yourself" issues and a repeat of what I've already talked about a lot. So if you want to read them, click on the links:
11b: Marriage Trouble
11c: Deliberate Ignorance
11d: Bad Things Beyond Our Responsibility)
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).
