Everything in life happens for a reason! Really?

Through no fault of your own, you lost your job, but there's a reason for it! No matter how hard you try, you can't seem to make ends meet. God is trying to tell you something! Your child has cancer, and so God is obviously punishing you for something. Really? That would be child abuse in my book!

If I believed that, I would be mad with God, and I am not! Certainly God allows this or that, but to say that such or such a thing happened for a reason, has the implication that God did it for that very reason, and I am not at all sure I could worship a God like that! To say that God allows this or that, is not the same as saying that He caused it.

It remains something of a mystery as to why He allows the things He does, but at least part of the explanation is that we are in a war to the death with the enemy of our souls. In the West it is often thought to be naive to believe in the devil. Not so in Africa, they know His power! He has (at least) two modes of operation. Here he seeks to persuade us that he does not exist. When he succeeds, he can whisper evil thoughts into our minds and we think it is our own thoughts. Sometimes it is, but I am thinking about the thoughts you (I) hope nobody ever finds out that you (I) have! In Africa he uses his power to seduce or cause fear. Ask our African brothers!

Jesus put it this way, “The thief comes for no other reason to steal and to kill and to destroy, but I am come that you might have life in all it's fullness.” The thief seems to be doing a good job. If it's all true would you not want to stop him stealing and robbing and destroying in your life? We need to get mad with him! It's not rocket science - God good, Devil - bad!

We are also told that “God works all things together for good for those who love Him.” This is not saying that bad things are good, it is not saying that God caused the bad things, and it is not saying that we will necessarily always understood how that can possibly be true. How can God possibly bring good out of the death of a child or out of any other incredible and devastating loss? He does not even promise that we would agree if we knew (at least not in the here and now). But He does promise that He is working and does work all things together for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.

What I do know is that when I chose to trust Him, He used all the things that cause me pain to draw me closer to Him, and that I am finding the fullness of life that He promised. Sometimes the pain is (was) a direct result of something I did (we reap what we sow). Sometimes it is the result of someone else's choices, something someone else said or did! Life is not fair, the good guys do not always win. If there is no hereafter, then certainly there is no justice, period! But God is just, and He has promised that in His time He will right every wrong, dry every tear, and mend every broken heart.

What if it's all true, and that the main reason we are here at all is to choose, to choose to follow either the thief or Him? What if there is no fence? Jesus told us there is not. “He who is not for me is against me!” What I know for sure is that my choosing to trust Him with the bad things that happened, and staying close to Him has allowed me to not only survive, but to live in hope and peace and even joy at times, starting to enter into the fulness He promised.

So does everything happen for reason? Not in the sense of the first paragraph. But can God bring meaning and reason into our suffering? Yes indeed He can, and He does when we choose to trust Him and to stop fighting the people and circumstances He allows!